Prosperity
by Faded Nights
Summary: Coreen's vanished, but it seems to be the least of their problems when a client of Vicki's ends up having connections to two vampires that are encroaching on Henry's territory. What's a PI to do when the events are related and her client disappears?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Blood Ties. All belong to various other parties.

Summary: Sometimes, it's who you least expect. Often times, though, it's your very first guess.

* * *

**Prosperity**

_Prologue_

Toronto didn't sleep, but that didn't mean that there weren't lulls in the city life. Sometimes even the busiest city street calmed, though it often took a heavy snowstorm in the middle of the week to accomplish such a feat. One such snowstorm was currently dumping on the city, leaving cars that were trying to get home to crawl, snails-pace, through the ever building white stuff as it covered the road, and pedestrians trying to catch that last night bus dashing through the blizzard as they tried not to get too, _too _wet.

Coreen had found herself as one such person as she ran down the street to a sheltered streetcar stop, her cloak flapping around her shoulders even as she struggled to keep it closed enough to be some protection against the elements. She shouldn't have stayed out so long, especially once she had seen that the clouds had begun to let go of the storm that had been brewing in them all day, but it wasn't often that she had a chance to sit around and just _read_ without having to do research of some sort or other for Vicki.

Not that she actually _minded_ doing research for Vicki, but she liked having the opportunity to do her own reading too. However, she had to remember to listen to the weather forecast the next time it predicted that they were going to have a snowstorm. At least she'd have warning, if it happened to be correct as it had been tonight.

Tapping one booted foot in an aggravated motion as she waited for the streetcar to show, Coreen peered around the edge of the shelter, cringing and squinting against the hard edge of the wind as it buffeted her face. No streetcar. Grumbling, she crept from the protection of the glass shelter to the edge of the road where the streetcar schedule was posted and scanned it.

"Frequent service. Right," she grumbled, and then looked down the street toward the closed subway station, irked that she was stuck out between service hours. She hurried back to the shelter and rubbed her hands together, breathing on them to give them a brief sensation of warmth before the wind cut across them again and swept the heat away, leaving her once again with cold fingers.

"Come on…" she muttered, glaring at the laptop advertisement that took up a full wall of the shelter - and, inconveniently, the wall that she needed to look through in order to see if the streetcar was on its way. She peered out again, watching as a car sped past - driving far too quickly for the weather - and then, in the distance, saw the murky shape of a public transit vehicle coming through the snow.

"Yes!" she cheered, and began digging through her purse, trying to locate her wallet and the tokens that were hiding inside of it. Fetching her wallet, she zipped it open and fished a token out of it, holding the small coin triumphantly upward when she'd managed to drag it with one finger from the fabric confines that had held it prisoner.

Certain that the streetcar should have just about pulled up to her stop by now, Coreen stepped out to the curb, braving the snow so that she could ensure that the driver would _see_ her in this mess. When she looked, though, there was no streetcar. She could make out the next set of lights, in the direction that the vehicle should have been coming from - the green of the traffic light was shining brightly through the dimness of the snow - but there was no big bulky form of the streetcar. That was odd.

A screeching noise suddenly cut through the night and Coreen jumped, reaching for her cell phone, intending to dial 911, even before she figured out what was going on. Her head darted around, eyes swivelling in their sockets as she tried to find the source of the noise. Logically, she knew that it could have been just about anything, from the squealing of brakes as they slid across an icy patch of road, to the wind knocking over a garbage can, but instinct - and reading far too much about the occult tonight for her to be completely comfortable in the dark - told her otherwise.

"Put it away," a voice hissed in her ear. Coreen tried to spin to see who had spoken, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she did so and found that she couldn't move. Her hand clenched more tightly around her cell phone - she had no intention of dropping it as per the request of some stranger, when suddenly, she felt something wash over her. She couldn't think straight. It was as though there were a presence in her mind, commanding her, controlling her. She was light. She would do whatever the presence wanted. Anything.

"I said, put it away," the voice said again. Coreen nodded slowly and slipped the cell phone back into her purse. She was being foolish. This person didn't want to hurt her, so why had she had her cell phone out with the intent to call in an emergency? What had the emergency been, anyway?

"Now, come with me," the voice said. Coreen's eyes locked onto the figure, and she was sure that she could see it clearly, but her brain wasn't registering what it was that she was seeing. A man? A woman? She couldn't even tell that - shouldn't the voice have given it away? But wait. Had she actually heard the voice?

Coreen followed the figure as it made its way out of the bus shelter and across the road, then started down a side street. She didn't register that they were going in the opposite direction from where she needed to go - she barely even registered that she was going anywhere. She couldn't feel the cold anymore, that was good. The figure approached a car and there was a brief sound as the alarm was disabled and the car doors unlocked at the click of a button.

"In," the voice ordered. Coreen didn't need the command - she had felt what the person wanted her to do before they had spoken, and she slowly climbed into the open passenger side door. The door closed beside her and Coreen automatically reached out and clicked on her seatbelt.

As the driver got into the car and started the engine, sitting just long enough to allow it to heat up a bit before they drove off, the delayed streetcar sped through down the main street behind them.

* * *

Chapter One Preview

"What do you want, Mike?" she asked.

"Do you have time to come down and look at something?" he replied.

"Nope. Got a client coming in half an hour. I need to be here, seeing as Coreen isn't." Mike made a frustrated noise on the other end, and she swore that she heard him hit something. Curiosity was beginning to get the better of her now - what could be so urgent that he wanted her opinion without her having come to him with some wonky case to begin with?

"I really need you to look at this, Vicki. You and Fitzroy, though I suppose I have to wait until sundown for that." There was a sarcastic tone to his voice as he spoke and Vicki rolled her eyes again. 

"If you don't need me unless Henry's there, then why do I need to come down now?" she asked blandly.


	2. Chapter One

**Prosperity**

_Chapter One_

Victoria Nelson was a Private Investigator. So when her own assistant didn't show up to work on time, she figured that it shouldn't have been so hard to track the girl down. After all, she already knew Coreen's phone number, where she lived, her frequent hang outs, and everything that she liked to do with her spare time. At least, most of what she liked to do with her spare time. Vicki wasn't certain that her mind would be able to handle knowing _everything_ that the Goth girl liked to do in her spare time. That was a line that she would never cross - a question that she would never ask.

It was also a very irrelevant question. Or, mostly irrelevant. Or, _had_ been irrelevant. Unfortunately, said Goth girl was missing, so the way that she spent her free time might soon be information that Vicki would need to be privy to. She shuddered at the thought - she'd come close enough to the world that Coreen lived in when they'd investigated The Underground. She didn't really have any wish to have to try and insert herself into the Goth subculture in order to find Coreen. She wasn't actually certain that she would be able to do it - at least not convincingly. Maybe Henry would be up for it.

Vicki tapped her fingers on the surface of her desk and hummed to herself as she peered around her office. Was she missing something? Maybe she'd given Coreen the day off and forgotten about it. With that thought, Vicki slipped her glasses on and made her way around the desk, where she began to peer at some of the various sticky notes that were stuck to it. When none of these gave her any clues, she moved onto the calendar that hung on the wall. No hints there either.

She_ would_ remember if Coreen had the day off, right? There was no reason for Vicki to have given her today off. It wasn't a holiday, business wasn't slow… In fact, the only thing that they _hadn't_ had recently was any sort of supernatural crime, which Vicki was more than thankful for, and wasn't any reason for Coreen to not come into work.

Vicki sighed and allowed herself to fall heavily into her chair as she sat down behind her desk. Her glasses slid down her nose as she brought one hand up to rub the bridge of it with her fingers. It was still early. She didn't know why she was so worried when Coreen could still waltz in at any moment, hair bobbing in one of the outrageous styles that she wore it in, with some excuse or another that would probably involve having been out late.

Perhaps that was all it was. Coreen had overslept, and was on her way to work even now. Still, Vicki's gut wasn't convinced. Her gut was telling her that there was something very, very wrong. Something that she was going to regret not knowing about. She tapped her fingers across the desk again, then grabbed the receiver of the phone in one hand and reached the other forward to dance across the keys.

She had half dialled Coreen's cell number for the third time when she let out a long sigh and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. If Coreen hadn't answered ten minutes ago, there was no reason for her to answer now. Vicki couldn't believe that she had just overslept - surely she would have been woken up by the phone if she were still sleeping when it had rang, or she would have called to tell Vicki that she was running late when she woke up. And if transit was delayed - they _had_ been dumped on by snow the night before - then she could still have answered her cell phone.

Vicki grumbled to herself and turned to her day planner, figuring that if Coreen was going to call, then she was going to call, and if she was going to show up to work, then she would show up to work, and that it was too early to file a missing person's report anyway - not that she actually knew if Coreen was missing or not. Whether she had an assistant or not, she still had clients to meet, including one who was set to come into the office within the next hour. If he was on time, that was.

The phone rang suddenly and Vicki nearly fell out of her chair as she jumped and then scrambled to pick the thing up from its receiver. _'Please be Coreen,'_ she thought to herself as she put the phone to her ear.

"Vicki Nelson Investigations," she answered. Her voice was a bit eager and urgent sounding - if it was Coreen on the other end, then she was quite ready to give the Goth girl a piece of her mind for worrying her so much.

"Since when do you answer your own phones?" The voice on the other end was male, not female, and also the last voice that she had wanted to hear when she was hoping for the perky tones of her assistant. She didn't need to be reminded that Coreen was missing, either.

"Since my assistant didn't show up to work this morning," Vicki said lightly, trying to put it off as nothing and fairly certain that she had succeeded. "What do you want, Mike?" she asked then. She could hear him shuffling on the other end of the line and rolled her eyes, knowing that it was going to be something that she didn't want to deal with even before he said anything.

"Do you have time to come down and look at something?" he asked. Vicki glanced at the clock that was sitting on her desk and shook her head, then realised that he couldn't see it. Her eyes flicked to her day planner again, just to make sure that all of the times were right and then she replied.

"Nope. Got a client coming in half an hour. I need to be here, seeing as Coreen isn't." Mike made a frustrated noise on the other end, and she swore that she heard him hit something. Curiosity was beginning to get the better of her now - what could be so urgent that he wanted her opinion without her having come to him with some wonky case to begin with?

"I really need you to look at this, Vicki. You _and_ Fitzroy, though I suppose I have to wait until sundown for that." There was a sarcastic tone to his voice as he spoke and Vicki rolled her eyes again.

"If you don't need me unless Henry's there, then why do I need to come down now?" she asked blandly.

"Wanted to see what you would think without his opinion influencing you," Mike responded after a moment's hesitation. Vicki grit her teeth. Of course he would say something like that. She really shouldn't have asked the question.

"I'll come down and take a look when Henry gets here tonight, and not before. Until then, I have a client coming in," Vicki said, and began moving to hang up the phone. Mike's voice on the other end prompted her to pause in mid-motion.

"Is Coreen missing?" he asked. Vicki's hand went up and began rubbing the bridge of her nose again.

"I don't know. She didn't show up to work today, and she hasn't called. I tried contacting her, but she isn't answering the phone, and I don't have time to make my way out to her place to check if she's actually home or not," Vicki replied. She heard Mike give a thoughtful sound on the other end of the phone.

"This thing I want you to see… Come down as soon as you can," he said, rather mysteriously. Vicki glared at the wall.

"If you know something, I'd appreciate it if you would just tell me," she said with an edge to her voice. Mike let out a dry laugh.

"I'm not hiding anything from you, Vicki. I just think that you need to see this, and I need your thoughts on it. Fitzroy's too. I also happen to think that it may help with finding Coreen if you haven't gotten in touch with her by tonight," Mike replied, speaking quickly but calmly. Vicki sighed. She couldn't argue with the logic - who else was Mike going to call for bizarre things that happened to show up in his normal day-to-day job? Not that being a cop had ever been a normal job, but at least they had usually dealt with normal people. Not vampires or werecats or ghouls or witches or whatever else the monster of the week was going to be next.

"Fine. We'll be there," Vicki said. A knock came on her office door and Vicki gestured for the person on the other side to enter. She gave the man who entered and looked around a tight smile, and then returned to the phone conversation at hand.

"Good," Mike said, before hanging up. Vicki rolled her eyes at the phone and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. She turned her attention to her client and beckoned for him to come and sit down across the desk from her.

"How can I help you, Mr Haward?" Vicki asked, discreetly sneaking a glance at her day planner for the name of the man before her before she put the book away. Her discussion with Mike had driven all information about the client from her head and with good reason. It would have driven all information concerning outside incidents from anyone. So she thought, anyway.

"Ambrose, please," he said quickly. Vicki let her eyebrow raise at the unusual name and the heavy Scottish accent that the man had, but didn't comment.

"Ambrose then," she said. She referenced her day planner again and then looked back up at him. "My assistant wrote down that you've come to have me search for a missing person?" Ambrose nodded quickly, and Vicki sighed. "Why didn't you go to the police, Mr Haward?" She paused, then corrected herself, "Sorry. Ambrose."

The man grimaced and sighed. Vicki knew the moment that he lowered his head to put his face into his hands, that this wasn't going to be as easy as it looked. He hadn't even started talking, and she knew that his explanation was going to have some very big holes in it. Sometimes, she really hated this job.

"I thought a P.I. might get this done more quickly than the police. Less protocol," Ambrose said. Vicki's eyebrow shot up. Less protocol. That didn't sound good. Just who was missing, and what was she going to have to do to find them?

"Less protocol," she stated slowly. Ambrose Haward gave a quick nod, and Vicki sighed. "Who exactly is missing, Ambrose?" she asked in the same slow manner of speaking. The man fidgeted a moment, twisting his hands together as though he didn't want to continue speaking.

"My… ah… Lover," he finally got out. Vicki bit the inside of her cheek. The man seemed embarrassed to admit that he had a lover - that, or the term itself embarrassed him. She felt sorry for the missing woman.

She opened her mouth to respond, to ask when the last time he had seen his lover was, or maybe to ask her name. She actually wasn't sure what she would have asked, because Ambrose cut across her before she could speak.

"And… And her lover."

Vicki stared at him. There wasn't any indication that this case would be anything other than simple missing persons, find them and return them to their loved ones, but the people involved seemed to be weird enough that she thought it might go under supernatural anyway.

"So._ Two_ missing people then, Mr Haward?" Vicki asked, wanting to make sure that she got this right. "And they're lovers, and they disappeared together without telling you where they were going?"

When Ambrose nodded, Vicki had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Well, it may not have been obvious to him what was going on, but it was fairly obvious to Vicki. If he wanted proof though, she supposed she wouldn't turn him away. In fact, she was sure that he was one of those people who wouldn't believe what was going on without any proof. For that matter, she wasn't sure what he would be willing to believe even if she _did_ find proof.

"Doesn't this tell you something, Ambrose?" Vicki asked patiently. Ambrose blinked at her, and then shook his head. Vicki sighed.

"Are you sure they haven't just run off and… eloped or something, without telling you?" she asked carefully. Ambrose's brow furrowed and he slowly shook his head.

"I'm sure, Ms Nelson," he said. Vicki sighed and nodded, outwardly in agreement, but inwardly quite certain that she'd solved this one without doing any work. Still, she slowly began taking notes. He had come to her for help, and she had to do her job.

"Names?" she asked. Ambrose's eyes suddenly took on a wary look that Vicki took note of carefully. Maybe there _was_ more going on here than she was giving Ambrose credit for. Maybe he was leaving something out. If he wanted his lover - she mentally add an 's' to the end of the word - found so badly though, why would he hide anything?

"Arianrhod Geddes is the elder. She's small, long red hair in ringlets, icy blue eyes," Ambrose said quickly. Vicki frowned at the unusual name of the woman and barely refrained from shaking her head. It sounded like cult activity. If the third had a name beginning with the letter 'a,' she was going to assume that it was.

"And the younger?" Vicki requested. Ambrose nodded quickly.

"Katrijn Dench," he said. "Tall, blonde haired, brown eyed." Vicki wrote this down. No cult activity then. Though Katrijn wasn't exactly a name typical to Canada either. She wondered if they had passports. Not having passports would be a very good reason for them to come to her instead of the police. She'd have to get Mike to run the names when she went to see whatever it was that he wanted her to see that evening.

"Where did you last see Arianrhod and Katrijn then, Ambrose?" Vicki asked. Ambrose bit his lip, and Vicki sighed. Surely it hadn't been that long since he had last seen them? "Are you unfamiliar with the city? Would you like a map?" She asked, reaching into her drawer to get one. Ambrose was nodding slowly.

"We just got into the city two nights ago, about an hour after the sun went down," he said slowly. Vicki nodded and began jotting this down as the man across the desk from her began unfolding the map. He laid it out on the desk in front of them and she watched as his eyes scanned it. His finger suddenly shot out and pointed to some place in the middle of the map.

Leaning forward, Vicki found that his finger was firmly lodged where Bloor crossed Yonge Street. She frowned - if the two women had abandoned him there, they could be anywhere now. You didn't have to know your way around the city to hop on the subway, and from Bloor and Yonge, they could be anywhere from the East end, to the West end, to the Lakeshore, to North York. It really didn't help. At all.

"Did they have any money on them?" she asked. Ambrose bit his lip, and then nodded. Vicki let out a heavy sigh. She was going on a wild goose chase. How pleasant.

"Well Ambrose, you have my number. I need you to call me if you hear anything from either of them, no matter what time of day it is," he nodded quickly. "And, of course, we need to discuss fees…" she trailed off and they began discussing how much she would be charging him per day until the women were either found or he gave up on searching for them.

"Please, call me as soon as you find any hints," Ambrose said, shoving a small piece of cardboard with a phone number scribbled onto it into her hands. She glanced at the number, finding the cell phone area code that the GTA had started using when they'd run out of numbers on the previous Toronto area code, and frowned. If they had just arrived in the city two days before, how did he have a Toronto area number already?

"I will," Vicki replied. The man nodded and then slowly backed up toward the door, only turning around once he had left the room. She narrowed her eyes as he left and shook her head once he was out of sight, her gaze catching the clock on her desk. Only a few hours until she had to go and see what Mike wanted. Maybe she could catch a few hours of sleep now, since she wouldn't be getting much tonight if she and Henry had to look for Coreen.

Yes, sleep sounded like a good idea. Vicki set the alarm on the desk clock and laid down on the couch, removing her glasses and setting them on the side table. She ran her hands over her face and let out a frustrated sound as she expelled a long breath. She_ should_ be going out to see if she could find Coreen. The longer she waited, the less likely she was to find her.

However, before she could force herself to get up again, Vicki had fallen fast asleep, sprawled across the couch, with only the thought that she should learn to sleep more at night lingering in her head.

* * *

Chapter Two Preview 

"So, let me get this straight. Even knowing that she could still be alive, you were tempted to cut into her anyway?" Henry asked, looking appalled.

Vicki looked between him and the coroner, feeling the tension mounting in the air and interjected, "It's her job, Henry."

"She cuts up dead people, not living ones," he protested with a growl. Vicki gave him a significant look, and the growl slowly subsided. He knew that she had a point.


	3. Chapter Two

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Two_

"Vicki," a voice prompted. Vicki started and opened her eyes as she snapped into a wakeful state. She looked up at Henry, who had woken her, and then toward her desk, trying to make out the clock but unable to read what it said in the dim light. She furrowed her brow.

"What time is it?" she mumbled, reaching back for her glasses. Her hand patted the table, trying to find their familiar shape, until Henry finally picked them up and passed them to her. She glared at him but didn't say anything as she slid them on, blinking her eyes as the magnification of the glasses allowed her to see a little bit better in the dim.

"Just after six," Henry replied. He sat down beside her on the couch as she scooted her legs over to make room for him. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Well, yes. I mean," Vicki sighed and shook her head. "Mike had something he wanted us to see," she finally said. Henry frowned and moved his head to the side slightly, as though trying to find something in her words that she hadn't said.

"Did he give you any indication of what he wanted us to see?" The vampire asked. Vicki shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Of course not," she said, tone a bit snappish. Henry made a gesture with his arms and repeated her phrase, appearing - and sounding - just as annoyed by Mike's evasion of what he had for them to see as Vicki was. For that matter, he probably was just as annoyed as she was, or perhaps more.

"Anything else?" Henry prompted after a moment. His voice was a normal, calm tone again.

Vicki nodded. "Coreen's missing. Unless you've seen her?" she asked hopefully. Henry's eyebrows knitted together and he shook his head.

"Missing?" he repeated. Vicki nodded and Henry's mouth tightened. "And she didn't call, and you're sure you have no idea where she could be?"

Vicki gave him a flat look and stated, "That would be the definition of 'missing,' Henry." He gave her a slight grin.

"Of course," the vampire conceded.

"Mhm. Let's go down to see Mike. I have some names I need him to run anyway, and maybe whatever he has to show me will have something to do with Coreen's disappearance," Vicki thought she sounded hopeful, and the look on Henry's face said that he thought so too, but he didn't comment. Instead, he rose from where he was sitting and reached forward, grabbing her coat off of the back of her desk chair and holding it out to her so that she could easily slip into it.

Vicki snatched up the notepad that she'd taken down the names and lousy descriptions of Ambrose's missing lovers on and slid it into her pocket, catching but ignoring the curious look that Henry gave it. "Names?" Henry asked politely when she'd made it clear that she wasn't showing them to him.

She nodded. "Just a case of a couple of lovers running out on a man who can't believe that they'd do that to him. Nothing supernatural," she explained. Henry seemed to accept this - though she was sure that she would hear about it at a later time - and gestured toward the door, indicating that they should probably leave.

"You know, even if it isn't supernatural seeming now, that doesn't mean that it's as cut and dry as you think it is," Henry said as she proceeded him out of the office. Vicki hesitated, then slowly nodded her head. He had a point.

---

"Still snowing. I don't believe this," Vicki grumbled as they ducked through the falling flakes and through the parking lot behind the police station. She scampered through the door that Henry held open for her and ran her hands quickly across the top of her head to rid her hair of excess snowflakes.

Henry watched her with an amused expression. "It's not as if the snow is actually staying," he observed, gesturing out of the window where, sure enough, the white flakes were melting as soon as they hit the pavement.

"Then why bother snowing at all?" asked Vicki grumpily. Henry laughed and shook his head before leading the way further into the building. Vicki trailed behind him, directing them toward the office, which Mike was standing outside of. He looked at his watch when they approached and tapped his foot.

"Sun set an hour ago," he said when they were close enough within earshot. Vicki rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.

"I fell asleep," she said. "I'm here now. Appreciate it," she added. Mike made a noise in his throat and gestured for them to follow him.

"Appreciating," he said. "Anyway, she's down in the morgue." Vicki and Henry shared a look. The thing - woman - that Mike wanted them to see was a corpse?

'_Please don't be Coreen,_' Vicki caught herself thinking. She didn't think it was likely to be her assistant. Wouldn't Mike have told her - or at least been a little less mysterious about what he wanted to show her - if Vicki was going to be emotionally involved with whatever - whomever - it was?

Henry's arm moved near her waist as though to wrap around it as they followed Mike to the morgue, and she moved quickly forward and away from it, not wanting - not _needing _- that argument with Mike so early in the evening. The vampire shot her a look that seemed a bit resigned, but dropped his arm back down by his side as they reached the doors to their destination.

"Oh, wait a second Mike," Vicki said suddenly as she remembered the notebook in her pocket. "Could you run some names for me after we're done here?" He raised an eyebrow at her and she caught Henry taking a discreet step backward, away from them, as though he didn't want to get involved in something that he thought was going to happen.

"Are you going to tell me why you need me to run them?" he asked. She frowned at him and resisted rolling her eyes. He wanted to go there again? "Or would I not believe it?" Suddenly, she understood why Henry had moved out of the line of fire.

"Nothing supernatural involved. I just want to see if you can find out why my client would come to me with a missing person's case, instead of first going to the police," Vicki explained. Mike raised an eyebrow and held out his hand, into which she passed the notebook. He flipped the cover open, peered at the names on the front page, and then snapped it closed again.

"Yeah, I'll look into them for you," he agreed. "_After_ you look at this thing that I want you to look at," he reminded her. As if she needed to be reminded. He'd gotten her plenty curious and probably wouldn't have been able to stop her from going into the morgue to see who was lying there, even if he changed his mind about her seeing them.

"Let's go see your body then," Vicki said, gesturing to the doors before them. Mike pushed open one of the doors and they stepped inside.

Doctor Mohadevan was standing by a body near the centre of the room, her hands on her hips as her eyes flickered across the woman's face. Face, head… Why wasn't the body fully covered? Vicki moved to get closer, when Henry's hand seized onto her arm, holding her back. She became aware that he was growling low in his throat, and she looked toward him in shock to find him with a hard look in his eyes, and his mouth twisted into a snarl.

The coroner looked past Vicki and Mike and her eyes fixed on Henry. "Yes, I thought so. You might as well come closer, I don't think she'll be getting up anytime soon," she said. Henry moved past Vicki and approached the metal table and the body that it held, keeping one arm out to the side and thus prohibiting her from walking past him. She frowned at him and peered around him to look at the woman's face once they'd made it to the side of the table.

Vicki caught sight of a mess of burgundy coloured curly hair, which tumbled down off to one side of the table for only a moment before her gaze was drawn to the face of the woman on the table. It had contorted for a moment, as though the woman was in pain - she could swear that she had seen the face move - before it smoothed back out, leaving the woman looking as lifeless as she had a moment before. The low growl was still playing in Henry's throat, and she watched him as he spun to face Mike and Dr Mohadevan.

"Where did you find her?" he growled out. Mike's eyes narrowed.

"Is that really relevant, Fitzroy? I don't think you need to know," the detective said. Vicki cringed as the testosterone level in the room increased. She _so _didn't need this right now.

"I need to know, Detective Celluci," Henry said calmly. Mike clasped his hands behind his back, and Vicki could almost sense his thoughts as they played through his head. She knew that he was going to try and take this opportunity to be difficult. Well, not while she was here and he was wasting her time too - at least, not if she could help it.

"Just answer his question, Mike," she requested. His eyes looked past Henry and at her and he sighed before nodding.

"University of Toronto campus, in a basement locker room turned bathroom of one of the buildings," he paused, then added, "Found her just before dawn." Henry clenched his teeth together and glared down at the woman on the table as the coroner launched into an explanation of her own.

"I happened to be here to receive the body before the sun came up. I noticed that she was behaving oddly. Well, behaving oddly for a corpse, anyway. So I waited for a few hours. When I actually went to do the autopsy, she had stopped moving. She truly appeared to be dead."

Henry was frowning. "It was after dawn, then," he stated. Vicki wasn't sure if it was for clarification or just something for him to say. Doctor Mohadevan nodded.

"It was. I informed Detective Celluci of what I had observed," she indicated Mike, "And he instructed me to hold off on my autopsy until the two of you had been given an opportunity to look at the body."

Henry and Vicki nodded, and then something seemed to dawn on Henry, because he blinked twice quickly before turning to glare at the coroner. "So let me get this straight. Even knowing that she could still be alive, you were tempted to cut into her anyway?" he asked, looking appalled.

"Well she _appeared_ to be dead, didn't she?" Dr. Mohadevan protested, her face twisting into an expression that said she wasn't amused at Henry challenging her.

Vicki looked between him and the coroner, feeling the tension mounting in the air and interjected, "It's her job, Henry."

"She cuts up dead people, not living ones," he protested with a growl. Vicki gave him a significant look, and the growl slowly subsided. He knew that she had a point. In all technicality, even if the woman lying on the table was a vampire, she was dead. Just as Henry was dead. So truly, the coroner would still have been doing her job.

"Let it go, Henry. Nothing happened," Vicki said. She wasn't quite certain why he cared anyway - she was sure that he was less than thrilled at the thought of having another vampire in his territory, especially as he didn't seem to have known that she had been in Toronto in the first place.

"Fine," Henry said tensely. Vicki shook her head and turned her attention back to the other woman.

"So, you don't know anything about her then? She didn't have I.D.?" Henry snorted, but she ignored him, preferring to turn her gaze back and forth between the coroner and Mike. Both shook their heads, and she finally turned her gaze questioningly to Henry.

"I don't know her," he stated after running his gaze across the woman's face again. Vicki's eyes did the same, her mouth twisting wryly as she examined the features of the 'Jane Doe.' Her eyes caught sight of the red hair again and she frowned. How good were the odds? Knowing the situations that she had tended to get herself into since Astaroth had marked her, they were probably a lot higher than she could wish. Was that good or bad?

"You don't know her eye colour by any chance, do you?" Vicki asked. '_Don't be blue,_' she pleaded with herself. '_Anything but blue_.'

The coroner quirked an eyebrow at her. "In fact, I do. That was something that I was able to check without any risk of harming the patient," she paused, and seemed to look Vicki over, as though she knew what was running through the P.I.'s mind. "They are blue."

Vicki groaned. Of course they were. What was the likelihood of _that_ particular coincidence?

* * *

Chapter Three Preview 

"I don't care what happens to her, Fitzroy. If she's dead - or undead - then I don't have any responsibility to protect her anyway," Mike said.

"Henry, she's not even awake. Would she really do any damage? And think of it this way - if you're keeping an eye on her, then she can't be a threat anyway," Vicki said. The vampire looked at her, something like anger flashing hot in his eyes.

"And if she rises and I'm not there?" he bit out.

"Keep her restrained."


	4. Chapter Three

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Three_

"So, what are you going to do with her?" Henry asked of Mike. The detective smoothed a hand across his face and Vicki looked up, wondering much the same thing. Unfortunately, while she _did_ wonder, she also suspected that she knew what Mike was going to suggest, and she knew that neither she nor Henry would like it.

"Well, if she's what you are, why can't you take her?" Mike asked. Vicki cringed - that had been exactly what she'd been afraid of him asking.

Henry let out a hollow, humourless laugh. "If you want her to stay alive, Detective, you won't send her to stay with me," he said. Vicki rolled her eyes, knowing that Henry wasn't making an empty threat, but wishing that he could have found a better way to make it.

"I don't care what happens to her, Fitzroy. If she's dead - or, undead - then I don't have any responsibility to protect her anyway," Mike said. As the testosterone in the room again rose, Vicki barely refrained from hitting Mike. Or hitting her head against a wall. Both actions were quite tempting at that moment.

"Well, I'm not keeping her in my morgue if she isn't fully dead," Mohadevan said sternly. Vicki looked at Henry, who had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking rather stubborn. She wondered how long it was going to take her to convince him to budge on this.

"Henry, she's not even awake. Would she really do any damage? And think of it this way - if you're keeping an eye on her, then she can't be a threat anyway,' Vicki said. The vampire looked at her, something like anger flashing hot in his eyes.

"And if she rises and I'm not there?" he bit out.

"Keep her restrained," Vicki offered. It was the most obvious solution to her, and she was sure that Henry, a vampire himself, would know the proper way to restrain another vampire. Henry, however, was frowning at her and muttering about things always being over-simplified. "Look, Henry. I can't keep her in my office―"

"I wouldn't let you," he cut across. She made a gesture, conceding this fact, and then held up a hand to stop him from speaking over her again so that she could continue.

"So you're the only one who had a place suitable for keeping her. Wouldn't you like to find out why she's here before you kill her?" Vicki asked slowly. Henry opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, appeared to think for a moment, and finally gave her a quick nod.

"Fine. But once I have her there, you don't go near her and if you're at my condo and you don't see her, you don't ask where she is," Henry instructed. Vicki couldn't say that she was fond of the way that the vampire said this - cool and detached, as though he were completely indifferent about what he was being asked to do - but she was thankful enough that he had agreed to do something with the vampire on the table that she said nothing about it.

"Now that that's settled," Mike said, clapping his hands together. "Mind telling me what could do that to her?" Henry returned his attention to the table and Vicki saw him frown for a moment, before he bent forward and lifted the body of the woman into his arms.

"Later, Detective. If I'm taking her, then I want to make sure I have her suitably… ah… _restrained_ long before dawn," Henry said.

"Henry?" Vicki prompted before whatever was causing the frustrated expression on Mike's face could bubble up past his lips and cause an argument. The vampire gave a minimal shake of his head and made his way to the morgue door, nodding to the coroner as he went.

"Doctor," he said, and then crossed the threshold and departed. Vicki didn't bother to wonder how he was going to get back through the building with a supposedly dead woman in his arms. Somehow, she didn't think that he would have any trouble at all.

She turned back to the other two in the room and raised an eyebrow at the expression that Mike was giving to the door. He seemed to catch himself then though, and gave his head a shake as though he were clearing his mind of whatever thought had crossed it, before he looked at Vicki.

"Why did you ask the eye colour?" Mike asked. Vicki sighed and gestured toward the notebook that she had given him.

"One of the names I asked you to run. The first woman on the list - my client described her as being small with red curly hair and ice blue eyes. I thought it was too much of a coincidence not to ask the eye colour," she explained. Mike crossed his arms.

"Lots of people have red hair and blue eyes. Especially if they're Irish," he objected. Vicki raised an eyebrow at him.

"What are the chances of a woman coming into the morgue and matching the exact description of a reported missing person?" she asked testily. Mike crossed his arms.

"I thought you said that the names you wanted me to run had nothing to do with anything supernatural?" he asked. He sounded annoyed and she couldn't blame him. She was annoyed too - annoyed at Ambrose Haward for not telling her that one of his missing lovers was a vampire.

"I didn't think they did, Mike," she admitted with a shake of her head. "I really didn't think they did."

"Of course you didn't," Mike's voice was condescending as he said it and she fixed him with a glower. "Now, come on. You said Coreen hadn't come into work?" He gestured toward the door. Vicki looked at the cool metal table that the vampire woman - who may or may not have been Arianrhod Geddes - had been lying on, then began heading for the door. Mike joined her as she passed him.

"Yeah…" she murmured.

---

"Arianrhod Geddes. Nothing," Mike said, looking at his computer screen and shaking his head. Vicki rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee.

"Does that surprise you?" Vicki asked. Mike snorted and shook his head.

"I wish it did," he replied. "So, she's either some sort of really old vampire, or I need new computer software. What're we going to go with?" Mike asked. She smiled and shook her head, rolling her eyes at his joke.

"I think we have to go with vampire," she answered. Mike let out a long sigh, and she felt tempted to echo it. She felt exactly the same way. Why _couldn't_ it just be lousy computer software?

"I thought you were going to say that," he said. Vicki nodded, expression bland as she took another drink from her coffee cup. She wished that she didn't have to be the one to say it - in fact, she wished that it had been the last thing on her mind. She shouldn't be pointing out that people weren't actually people, that they were in fact vampires. When had her life gotten so weird?

"I should check on Henry. Make sure he hasn't killed the woman my client is searching for," she paused as the words tumbled out of her mouth. "Why is everything always so complicated?" she asked. "Why can't I get a normal case of two lovers eloping and leaving one behind?"

Mike gave her an odd look, at which point she realised that she hadn't actually explained the full story that Ambrose had told her when he was in her office. Not that she thought that it was actually relevant now - after all, it was clear that her client had either lied to her or omitted the majority of the truth when he was explaining the disappearance of Arianrhod and Katrijn to her.

"Never mind. I don't want to know," Mike said when she opened her mouth to explain. "Forget your client for a few minutes, and tell me about Coreen's disappearance before you go and make sure that Fitzroy hasn't killed Geddes."

Vicki, who had risen halfway out of her chair, now dropped back down into it and let her head fall to rest against her hand, left elbow propped on the desk to hold it up. "She didn't come into work this morning, which is pretty unusual in itself. I mean, Coreen has an expensive wardrobe and likes to get paid so that she can afford it," she said. Mike nodded slowly, and she noticed that he had a pad of paper out and a pen in his hand.

"And so you called her," Mike prompted. Vicki nodded.

"Twice on her cell phone, once at home. No response any of the times," Vicki said. She looked out of one of the windows at the dark sky that had settled over the city while she had been napping. Before Henry had woken her up, and before she had discovered that her client was searching for a vampire. Finding Coreen needed to be the top thing on her list of priorities, but somehow, the girl kept getting shunted off to one side by everything else that was going on.

"You haven't had time to swing by her place yet? See if she's home but not answering the phone for some reason?" Mike asked. Vicki shook her head.

"No, but I don't think she is. Wouldn't you answer the phone if it started ringing off the hook, even if you were trying to ignore it?" she asked him. Mike appeared to contemplate this for a moment.

"If I was a young twenty-something? Yes, I suppose I would," he admitted. "Otherwise, no." She raised an eyebrow at him but didn't ask for him to elaborate. Focus. She needed to be completely focused on Coreen's disappearance.

"So. She's not answering the phone, which means that she's probably not at home. Coreen have any enemies?" Mike asked. Vicki gave him a flat look, and he shrugged. "Routine questions, Vicki."

She sighed, nodded and put a hand to her head. Enemies. Could her enemies be counted as Coreen's enemies? Would Mike really want to hear about all of the supernatural weird things that had become their enemies?

"Vicki?" Mike prompted. She glanced through her fingers and up at him.

"First name that comes to mind is Norman, closely followed by Astaroth," she said. Mike gave her a flat look.

"Real enemies, Vicki," he said. She glared at him.

"Those are _real_ enemies, Mike," she argued. He sighed, wrote something down, and then flipped the notebook closed and tucked it away in a drawer.

"If you think of someone else, call me," Mike stated. He pointed at the notebook that Vicki had given him. "I'll run the other two names and get back to you if I find anything, though I doubt now that I will."

She nodded and stood. "I should go and make sure that Henry hasn't killed that woman," she said, pulling her jacket on. A grimace crossed Mike's face for a moment before his expression became resigned, almost stubborn.

"I'm forcing myself to remember that she's a vampire - whether she's Arianrhod Geddes or not - and that I really don't care what happens to her, because she'll only cause havoc if she's out on the streets," Mike said. Vicki gave a laugh and headed for the door, waving at him over her shoulder.

"Good luck with that, Mike," she called back. Mike retorted with something, but she couldn't make it out, being already halfway out of the door. She was fairly certain that she hadn't wanted to hear it anyway.

---

Instead of going directly back to her office afterward, Vicki stopped at Coreen's. Waving the taxi away - she could get another one when she was ready to leave - she went into the building and up to Coreen's floor. She approached the door, knocked once and then looked around when no one came to answer. Slipping her lock picking tool from her jacket pocket, and glanced around again and then quickly worked the door open.

When the lock clicked, she put the tool away and looked around again before slipping into the apartment. She closed the door behind her and looked around the dark apartment.

"No lights. Great," she muttered. "Coreen?" she called, groping along the wall for a light switch. Her other hand plunged into her pocket, feeling around for a flashlight, even though she knew that there wasn't one there.

"Coreen?" she called again. There was no response - not that she had expected one - and she grumbled and stretched her arm further down the wall. "There!" she exclaimed happily, flicking the light on. A light flickered on slowly above her and she glanced up to spy one of the new florescent bulbs that the government was trying to push through in their attempt to be 'green.'

She looked around slowly, trying to find some sign of a struggle, or any sign of where Coreen could have vanished to. The apartment though, seemed to be fairly clean, and utterly void of clues. She moved further into the apartment, turning on lights as she went so that she would be sure that she didn't miss anything. When she reached the bedroom, and had quickly glanced around it, she was certain that Coreen wasn't there.

So, no Coreen. Shaking her head, and feeling as though her worry for the girl had increased ten fold since she'd arrived, Vicki reached for her cell phone. She dialled in Mike's number, then sighed and changed her mind. Cancelling what she had inputted, Vicki called Henry instead.

"Come on," she muttered. "You've been there long enough. You've got to be done doing whatever it was that you were doing…" She rolled her eyes as the phone rang once, then twice, then a third time and clicked to voice mail. Pulling the phone away from her ear and glaring at it, Vicki hung up and then called the vampire again. Maybe if she called enough, he would pick up. The ringing of the phone was annoying enough to human ears - she could only imagine what Henry would hear.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end sounded annoyed, but Vicki grinned to herself, despite the reason behind her calling.

"Henry. I'm at Coreen's, and she's not home, so I'm one hundred percent sure that she's missing now. I'm going to call Mike and tell him, but I wanted to let you know first. How're things going with the mystery vampire?" Henry made a noise on the other end as she finished speaking that she thought was the beginnings of a growl. She took it to mean that things weren't going well, but allowed him to speak anyway.

"I've got her tied down. Not to my liking, but if she doesn't wake up then it will do," he said. Vicki grimaced, briefly allowing her mind to wonder what Henry would consider 'to his liking' when it came to restraining a vampire of some unknown power level. Especially when he had no idea who the vampire was or if she meant him harm. Suddenly, Vicki thought that she was realising why Henry hadn't wanted to have custody of the woman.

"So, do you have time to come down to the office so that we can figure out what's happened to Coreen?" she asked. She heard Henry sigh and then heard shuffling on the other end of the phone, as though he were moving or changing position. When he spoke again, he sounded distracted.

"I'm reluctant to leave, Vicki," he said. She nodded slowly, though she rolled her eyes at the same time. She could understand why he might not want to leave his condo with a strange vampire restrained in it, but she had also seen the woman, and she didn't think that she had looked as though she were going to awaken anytime soon. "But there are a few things that I have to do anyway," he added after a moment.

She grinned. "Good. I have to call Mike now―"

"Do you want me to come by and pick you up?" Henry cut across. Vicki let out a soft laugh.

"―and tell him that Coreen is most definitely not home. And yes, I'd appreciate it. Thank you," she finished. Henry told her to wait outside of the building and then hung up, leaving her free to make the second phone call.

"Mike?" she said when he'd answered. "We definitely have a missing person on our hands."

* * *

Chapter Four Preview 

"So, where did you find her again, Detective?" Henry asked. Vicki picked up on the tone of voice and frowned at him, wondering what it was that he wanted with the information. She didn't think that he would tell her - in fact, she was fairly certain that he wouldn't tell her.

"University of Toronto campus," Mike said shortly. "It's a crime scene, Fitzroy, you're not welcome there."

"There was no crime," Henry said smoothly.

"You think that my supervisor will buy that?"


	5. Chapter Four

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Four_

Henry definitely looked aggravated when he came by to pick her up from in front of Coreen's building, and thus the ride back to her office was rather quiet, broken only by the occasional question from her that he would give brief, one word answers to. She wasn't sure if it was she that he was annoyed with or Mike, or the woman in his condo, or at the entire situation altogether - which was more than likely - and she wasn't quite certain that she actually wanted to ask.

"You're uneasy, having her there," Vicki said suddenly, interrupting the conversation that they had been having - though there really hadn't been much of a conversation - and making Henry swivel his head quickly to frown at her before he focused his attention back on the road. It was more of a reaction than she could have hoped for, and she knew now that no matter how Henry tried to evade the question, that he _did _feel uneasy about the woman's presence.

"Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn't be?" he asked curtly. She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. It seemed to her as though he were almost trying to pick a fight, and the last thing that she wanted to do right now with Coreen missing and with her client looking for vampires, was fight with Henry.

"No, I'm not. And I'm not objecting to your being uneasy. In fact, I'd be worried if you _weren't_ uneasy," she caught him smile a bit at this before his expression became stony and annoyed again. Something came to mind then and she tilted her head to one side questioningly. "You never answered Mike's question before. What _could_ do that to a vampire?" she asked.

She saw Henry glance at her out of the corner of his eye, his head slightly tilting toward her before his attention snapped back onto the road. He seemed to be thinking about the best way to answer her question, and that in itself put her on edge. When he finally did respond to her, it was after a very lengthy pause.

"I don't know," he admitted quietly, shaking his head. "I would say that we needed to have Coreen look it up, but as that's going to prove impossible, I suppose that I'm going to have to do some research on my own." He was frowning as he spoke and as they came to a stop at a red light, he turned his head to look at her.

"Unless the client who may or may not be looking for knows something," he added. Vicki nodded slowly, falling into a contemplative silence as they continued the drive to her office.

Vicki had absolutely no doubt that Ambrose Haward was hiding things from her, and she didn't think that Arianrhod Geddes being a vampire was the only thing that was being hidden. In fact, she was quite certain that it wasn't the only thing. It was beginning to look as though she needed to call her client, and she was sure that the conversation they were going to have was going to be less than pleasant. It was definitely something that she was going to need to do after getting a few more hours of sleep.

"Did looking around at Coreen's help you figure anything out?" Henry asked once they were back in the office.

Vicki's mouth twisted wryly. "Well, I found out that she sleeps with something that resembles a voodoo doll," she replied. Henry gave her a flat look.

"That concerns her being missing," he elaborated unnecessarily. Vicki shook her head.

"Nothing," she replied. She sat down on the edge of her desk and looked over the papers that were still scattered on the table. "Sure you don't know a woman named Arianrhod?" she asked. Henry's mouth twisted and he shook his head.

"I'm sure. If she's the woman currently in my apartment though, then she'd better have a good reason for being in my territory when she wakes up," he said. Vicki rolled her eyes and nodded - somehow, she didn't think that Henry would be as hesitant about harming the red haired vampire as he had been when Christina was in town.

Henry's nostrils flared suddenly and before she could blink, he was standing at the window and glaring out at the street below.

"Henry?" she prompted, crossing the room to stand near him. Before she could fully get at the wall though, he threw up an arm to hold her back. "Okay, are you going to tell me why I can't look out my office window now?" she asked, aggravated.

He didn't respond for a moment, and when he finally did, he had turned away from the window and sat down in a chair in front of Vicki's desk. There was a sour looking expression on his face and she raised her eyebrows as she watched him.

"Henry?" she prompted again. He looked at her, but his eyes were focused on her wrists instead of her face.

"I sensed something. I swear that it was another vampire," he said. He didn't sound as though he were fully in the conversation. She frowned at him and looked out of the window, peering through the blinds and letting her eyes flicker up and down the street and over the people that were walking past the building.

She turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. "How many vampires can this city hold?" she asked blandly. Henry was wearing a flat expression and he shook his head.

"One," he growled. "Call Ambrose. I want to know if both of the women that he's looking for are vampires. If they are, I want to know why they're in my city." He stood abruptly and began pacing back and forth across the small space that the room permitted. Vicki watched him carefully.

"How do you know that the vampire you just sensed wasn't Arianrhod?" she asked.

Henry shook his head. "Not powerful enough. Besides, that woman isn't getting out of my apartment in her state," he said snappishly. Vicki leaned against the wall next to the window and folded her arms across her chest.

"I'll call Ambrose," she said. Henry nodded.

"Thank you," he said shortly. "And while you're calling your client, I have to talk to Detective Celluci about something." As he said it, he rose and began to make his way to the door. Vicki cringed and moved quickly past him so that she was standing on the threshold and he would have had to move her if he wanted to continue on his way.

"Why don't you wait until I've spoken to Ambrose, and then we can go together?" she asked. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she smiled in what she hoped was a winning manner. She really didn't need Henry and Mike meeting together without her again - she wasn't sure what would happen if they were alone together without supervision.

"You don't trust me." It was a statement, not a question, and Vicki resisted the urge to squirm under the look that he was giving her.

"It's not― Okay, maybe it is that, a bit. But I don't trust Mike more. He's tried to kill you once already," she said quickly, trying to fill in the hole that she was digging as quickly as she was digging it. Henry put his hands into the pockets of his jacket and moved to lean up against the doorframe.

"At least you're honest," he said in a low tone. "Fine. I'll wait." She gave him a grateful smile and moved across the room to her desk. She grabbed the phone number that Ambrose had left, frowning once again at the area code that preceded the seven digit number. She still couldn't believe that the three had only been in the city for two days. Not if Ambrose had a Toronto cell phone.

Shaking her head, she picked up the phone receiver and dialled the number. She glanced up at Henry, and then pointedly looked away from the flat expression that he was moving back and forth between her and the clock that sat on the desk. When the phone rang thrice and then went to voice mail, she dropped the receiver back into its cradle and looked back at Henry.

"What?" she asked, irritated.

"It's one o'clock in the morning. You couldn't really have expected him to answer," the vampire said. Vicki glared at him.

"If he's hanging around with a vampire, then his sleeping habits have to be the same as mine," she stated blandly.

"Not if the vampire isn't around," Henry said smoothly. She sighed and folded her arms over her chest.

"You have a point," she conceded. He grinned and she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Okay, you wanted to talk to Mike. Let's go." She swore that he was laughing at her as they left the office, but didn't call him on it - and not only because she couldn't prove it. After all, if she was bitter that her sleeping habits were the farthest thing from normal, then it was hardly his fault. That was a hazard of the job more than a hazard of working with a vampire.

Though the working with the vampire thing couldn't be dismissed entirely, if only because she wouldn't let it.

---

Mike didn't look surprised to see them when they walked up to his desk, where he was looking intently at his computer screen. Intrigued, Vicki moved around the bulky piece of furniture so that she was standing behind Mike and peered over his shoulder at the screen.

"Vicki," he muttered, sounding annoyed. "If you had asked, I would have told you what I was working on." She hummed a sound near his ear, telling him that she was well aware of that.

"Hanging over your shoulder seemed like the thing to do. So, find anything on those other names?" she asked. Mike spun his chair around so that he was facing her and so that she had to take a few steps backward or risk falling forward and onto his lap.

"Ambrose Haward doesn't have any priors, but we have him coming through customs on a plane from…" he trailed off and checked something on the computer screen. "Glasgow, three days ago." Vicki glanced across Mike's head and at Henry, who had a contemplative expression on his face, but wasn't making any move to speak.

"So he exists anyway. Anyone else come over with him?" she asked.

"Besides a plane full of tourists?" Mike asked. "Nope. Neither Arianrhod Geddes nor Katrijn Dench are recorded as being on that flight. Or any other flights from Glasgow in the last few days. In fact…" and he turned back to the computer again. "Katrijn Dench was reported as missing a month and a half ago. In the Netherlands."

"So she's Dutch," Vicki said. "Explains the name." She looked up at where Henry had been standing, only to find him leaning over her so that he could look at the computer screen as well. Mike noticed this and reached forward to turn the monitor off.

"Ask me a question and I'll decide whether or not I'm going to answer it, Fitzroy. Don't look over my shoulder," the detective said irritably. Henry rolled his eyes and crossed his arms before taking a step backward so that he wasn't as close to them.

"Fine. Arianrhod Geddes. Where did you find her again, Detective?" he asked. Vicki picked up on the tone of voice and frowned at him, wondering what it was that he wanted with the information. She didn't think that he would tell her - in fact, she was fairly certain that he wouldn't tell her - but she couldn't see how it could be useful to him.

"University of Toronto campus," Mike said shortly. "It's a crime scene, Fitzroy, you're not welcome there." Vicki sighed. While she was glad that she had decided that it would have been a bad idea for Henry to have done this on his own, she still resented him - both of them - for forcing her to stand here while they argued.

"There was no crime," Henry said smoothly.

"You think that my supervisor will buy that?" Mike asked rolling his eyes. "Well guess what. She won't. There was a body found - I'm already taking heat because it's gone _missing_. I'm not going to try and convince Crowley that there was no body and no crime at all."

"_I_can do that," Henry objected. "Just tell me what building the body was found in. Let me figure out what could have let the woman in that state. Then we can see if it's reversible, clean up the mess, and you'll have two less vampires in your city at dawn two days from now."

Mike was looking hopeful, and Vicki thought that she knew why. It was a shame he had no idea that there were very likely three vampires in the city at that moment.

"You'll leave too?" Mike asked. Henry's mouth contorted as though her were grinding his teeth together and trying not to lash out.

"I sensed another, outside of Vicki's office tonight," he clarified. Mike sighed, propped his elbows on his desk and dropped his head into the support of his palms.

"Of course you did. I thought you said vampires were _solitary_ creatures? Why is it that all of the ones that have come into this city since I met _you_ have been travelling in pairs?" Mike asked. He sounded a bit anguished, and Vicki couldn't blame him. She was beginning to wonder the same thing, really.

"The second vampire I detected was very weak. It's quite possible that the woman I have restrained in my apartment is the one who brought the weaker one over," Henry said. Vicki frowned.

"Could it be Katrijn Dench?" she asked. "She went missing a month and a half ago - could that have been when Arianrhod turned her?"

Henry was frowning at her, but the expression in his eyes told her that he was very carefully working this idea over in his mind. Finally, he nodded slowly.

"It's more than possible," he said slowly. "And it leaves me with a question - if Ambrose Haward was travelling with two vampires, then how did one end up nearly comatose and the other roaming the city without him?"

* * *

Chapter Five Preview

'_Cell phone. Please be around here somewhere_,' Coreen pleaded to whatever gods ruled cell phones. There had to be a cell phone god, right?

Her hands scrambled against old carpet, and suddenly she seized upon something - the contents of her purse, upturned on the floor. Her hand grabbed up the familiar form of her phone, and she hit the first speed dial.

"Vicki―"

"Vicki, Vicki, help!"

* * *

Please review, guys. I like to be sure I've got the characters down and that the plot makes sense, and it's the only way I'll know. So please, drop me a comment and let me know. 


	6. Chapter Five

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Five_

"Larkin Building, University of Toronto, St. George campus," Henry said, looking up at it from where they stood on the sidewalk outside of it. "And apparently home to a creepy women's washroom," he added. Vicki raised an eyebrow at him and turned her flashlight on.

"No guarantee that it's open," she said. Henry returned her raised eyebrow.

"I was counting on you to bypass a locked door," he said. She let out a laugh and rolled her eyes.

"Of course you were," she replied. She led the way up the stairs that led from the sidewalk to the building and stopped when they came to the door. "This one closest, you figure?" she asked. Henry made an open gesture with his hands that she took as a shrug, and she sighed. "Right. If this building has an alarm, it's on your head."

He made a sound of what she thought was agreement, and she raised an eyebrow and looked back at him after tugging on the door to make sure that it was really locked. His back was too her, and he appeared to be looking around the area of the campus that they were in. "I prefer the older buildings of King's College," he said, turning to face the South.

"They haven't called it that since it was a baby university, Henry," Vicki said, staring up at the overhang that served to cover the walkway that ran beside the building in exasperation. "Can we get on with this?"

"I'm waiting for you," he reminded her as he turned back around to peer through the glass door. "Stairs and crime scene tape. I would assume that we have to go down the stairs to find the washroom." Vicki grumbled and handed her flashlight to him.

"Shine that on the lock," she instructed. He took the light from her with a quick bow that caused her to roll her eyes again - she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately - and flicked it on, shining it on the lock so that she could make out what she was doing.

"Is that a residence?" Henry asked, she glanced up and across the street, noticing that they were in full view of the windows in the building opposite. Frowning and returning to her lock picking tools, Vicki shrugged.

"If it is and there's someone looking out, we're screwed," she said good naturedly. Henry snorted.

"No one's watching," he said, eyes scanning the windows. Vicki smirked as she heard the lock on the door click, and she pulled her tools from the lock and tucked them back into her kit. Henry clicked the flashlight off and handed it back to her, only for her to click it back on.

"Some of us have night blindness," she growled. He opened the door and stepped back so that she could enter, giving her an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry," he said. She couldn't tell if it was honest or not - it probably was, but she was tired and it was four am and she really, really wanted nothing better than to go home and tuck herself into bed. Unfortunately, she had a vampire to find, and a client to track down, and, oh yeah, a missing assistant that she still hadn't heard from. It was amazing how many things could happen in one night.

"I feel like I've been up for days," Vicki said, shaking her head as they made their way down the stairs and approached the women's washroom. "Oh, yeah. Creepy vibes," she added, shaking her head. She heard a low growl beside her and spun to look at her partner.

Henry was glaring around, his eyes black, fangs protruding over his lips. His gaze fixed on the door as Vicki put her hand on it to push it open, and he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Let me go first," he growled out. She furrowed her brow but stepped to one side, allowing Henry to lead the way in.

Vicki's first thought was that if there was any stereotypical place for a murder to happen, that it was here. She looked past the crime scene markers, past the chalk drawing on the floor where the body had been found - though Henry went straight to it - and all she could see was lockers. Mike had been right. The washroom was some sort of disused locker room turned bathroom.

She approached one of the lockers and frowned, noticing that it was locked shut. Perhaps it wasn't as disused as they had thought. Turning, flashlight roaming across the rest of the room, Vicki noticed that almost every locker in the space had a lock on it. That was strange - who would store _anything_ down here? Shaking her head, Vicki made her way across the room to the actual _washroom_ part. There was a long row of stalls with toilets, and a few showers. It was decidedly eerie here, and the lack of lighting didn't help at all.

Shivering, she returned to where Henry was standing. "Got anything?" she asked. He nodded shortly, and pointed, in sequence, to a few points around the room.

"I have no idea how the police missed them. I assume Detective Celluci saw what he wanted to see," Henry said, crossing to one of the points that he'd indicated. He picked up the object that was on the floor there and crossed back to her. "I think they mark the points of a pentagram."

She looked at the object he was holding in his hand. "A burnt down candle?" she asked. "What would five―" she abruptly stopped speaking and whirled around so that she was looking at where the chalk outline of where the body had been was. "She was in the middle."

Henry nodded. "We need to find out what type of spell was used," he said. His eyes had reverted to normal, and his fangs had retracted but somehow, he still looked feral. It was as though some emotion or other was radiating off of him - she knew there was something there, but her perception couldn't quite grasp onto it.

"Can you tell if it was black magic or not?" she asked. He raised his head slightly, and appeared to scent the air for a moment. Vicki, having absolutely no idea what this could do, tapped her foot on the ground while waiting for him to finish. When he did, she looked at him expectantly.

"I don't smell any blood, and most black magic spells require it," he murmured. She noticed that he was still looking around, his eyes never staying in one place, as though he were looking for something. Finally, it appeared as though his eyes had seized on what he was looking for, because he rushed to the far corner of the room.

"Salt," he said quietly, bending down and picking up something from the ground that Vicki, for the life of her, couldn't see. "Some sort of binding spell. But why salt? Why salt instead of blood?"

The vampire shook his head and sniffed the air again, then returned to where Vicki was standing and sighed. "We're done here," he stated. She looked at him questioningly.

"You know I don't understand any of this," she said flatly. "Somehow, you managed to relate candles and pentagrams and binding spells to something that I put on my French fries when they're too bland." Henry grinned and let out a chuckle at this.

"I'll explain tonight. I have to get home now though, dawn is approaching," he frowned down at her. "I'll take you home first though."

"Well thank you," she said. "Let's just make sure we leave everything as it was when we came before we go. The last thing I need is Mike finding out I was here and tearing a strip out of me for being on his crime scene."

---

Coreen's eyes came slowly into focus in the darkness, and then, even more slowly it seemed, her eyes adjusted further to the almost complete lack of light that was in the room. Where was she, what had happened, and how was she going to get away? She shivered and folded in on herself as she recalled the last thing that she remembered doing. She'd been reading. She'd gone to catch the streetcar that would take her home. Then what? Somehow, between trying to catch the streetcar and waking up here, she'd, well, _gotten_ here.

That was weird.

She heard footsteps and looked up toward the direction that they were coming from. Someone was here. Was it the person who brought her here, or someone coming to save her? She thought of calling out, maybe shouting Vicki's name in hope that it would be her, but then decided against it. If it was her captor coming - which it more than likely was - then she didn't need them to know who she was hoping was going to come and find her.

Instead, Coreen lay back down on the floor, feeling the old, broken down carpet beneath her head and wondering, yet again, where she was. She'd always thought that kidnappers kept the people they had kidnapped in stone basements, on cold concrete. A carpet - a semblance of comfort - seemed out of place to her. Shaking her head inwardly to rid her of the thought, Coreen closed her eyes and quickly pretended to be unconscious again as something clicked near the door to the room and it creaked open.

She felt the vibrations of footsteps crossing the floor, coming toward her, and resisted the urge to either open her eyes or hold her breath. She knew that the person could see her, so there was no point in pretending that she wasn't there. She was lying right out in the open after all.

"You're awake?" the voice that spoke was a woman's, and had a heavy accent that she couldn't quite place. It was something European, that was for sure. Some sort of Germanic language, maybe, but not harsh enough to actually be German. Coreen stayed silent. Maybe if she didn't respond, the woman would leave again.

"You're not fooling anyone," the woman said. Coreen heard a shuffling sound by her ear, and then felt herself being lifted slowly. Grimacing, she pulled away from the hands and opened her eyes, turning to glare at the woman.

She saw a shock of blond hair, and then became aware of hypnotic eyes that were nothing more than black pools surrounded by a small ring of white. She thought that something was touching her neck, but she couldn't tell for certain. Did it hurt? She wasn't sure.

Then suddenly, she was aware again and the woman was backing away. Her eyes were brown again, and Coreen wondered if she had imagined the black pools that had seemed so similar to Henry's eyes when he became angry and his grip on humanity slipped. She knew that she was staring up at the woman in horror, but couldn't quite bring herself to look away.

"I'm sorry," the woman whispered in her heavily accented voice. "But I can't let you go." The woman was shaking her head, sending long blonde hair cascading around her shoulders to come around and half cover her face. "I'm sorry," she repeated. Then she was gone, and Coreen was left staring again at the closed and locked door.

Her hand flew up to touch her neck and when she brought her fingers away, she discovered that they had blood on them. The woman had fed off of her. Coreen shivered and folded in on herself further, feeling a bit light headed. The light headed feeling wasn't only from the blood loss, but also from the situation that she had been thrown into. Was she even still in Toronto? If she was, then why hadn't Henry found this other vampire and killed her or driven her away?

Coreen shook her head and looked around the dim room. Maybe there was something around that belonged to her - maybe the vampire was sloppy. She should look for her cell phone, it _could_ be around here somewhere, no matter how slim of a chance it was.

'_Cell phone. Please be around here somewhere_,' she pleaded to whatever gods ruled cell phones. There had to be a cell phone god, right?

Her hands scrambled against old carpet, and suddenly she seized upon something - the contents of her purse, upturned on the floor. Her hand grabbed up the familiar form of her phone, and she hit the first speed dial.

"Vicki―"

"Vicki, Vicki, help!" Coreen exclaimed, glancing toward the door. She couldn't guarantee that the vampire wasn't standing just outside, waiting for her to do something like this.

"Coreen? Coreen where are you?" Vicki demanded. Her voice sounded worried and Coreen briefly wondered how long it had been since she had last spoken to Vicki. She had lost track of time, she had no idea.

"In someone's basement, I think," the Goth girl replied, dropping her voice down to almost a whisper. She felt calmer now, talking to Vicki. It was hard to explain the feeling, but she was sure that something about just hearing the other woman's voice was making her feel calmer. "But that doesn't matter," she added quickly. She could hear Vicki moving around on the other end. "Vicki, there's another vampire in the city. You have to tell Henry."

"He knows," came Vicki's voice after a pause. "Coreen, do you know what the vampire looks like?" Coreen frowned at the strange question, wondering what Vicki knew that she didn't. What had been happening while she had been trapped in this room?

She gave the vampire's description to Vicki and heard the woman muttering something on the other end. There was a scratching sound coming through the phone too, and then silence for a moment before Vicki began speaking again.

"How are you calling me?" she asked.

"Cell phone was beside me," Coreen said, still slightly in awe of this. On the other end, Vicki snorted with something that sounded like laughter into the phone.

"So she's sloppy. Good. Keep your phone on you - in your bra or something if you have to. Don't let her get it again. I'll call you back around noon, okay?" Vicki said.

"Uhh, okay," Coreen replied, wondering how on Earth she was going to know when it was noon. She was tired - she really wanted to sleep.

"Coreen, is she feeding on you?" Vicki asked suddenly, just as Coreen was about to hang up the phone, thinking that the conversation was over. Coreen hesitated - she wasn't sure the best way to answer that. 'Feeding' the way that Vicki had said it, implied to her that the vampire had done it more than once. To her knowledge though, the woman had only taken blood from her the one time.

"Coreen?" Vicki prompted.

"I think so," Coreen replied slowly. She heard Vicki breathe in and then let out a long sigh into the phone.

"Be careful. Or as careful as you can be, anyway. Remember to answer the phone if it rings." And then she was gone, leaving Coreen staring blankly at the cell phone and the little battery bar that told her that her battery was likely to cut out within the next few hours. However, the phone had the time on it as well.

Frowning, Coreen turned the phone off, intending on thurning it back on after she'd had a nap and was sure that it was closer to noon. It was the only way that she was going to be able to preserve the battery long enough to ensure that she was able to speak with Vicki later. She just hoped that she would wake up from her nap before noon.

* * *

Chapter Six Preview

"Victoria," Mike said. She didn't need the tone of voice to tell that he was angry with her for something - her full name was enough.

"What?" she snapped.

"You and Fitzroy were on my crime scene. Explain."

* * *

Historical Facts:

King's College was established in 1827, predating the formation of the Dominion of Canada by 40 years. 23 years later, in 1850, King's College was renamed to be the University of Toronto, in order to slowly sever ties with the monarchy. 157 years after that, your author walked into her first class at the university. 8D;

The Larkin Building actually exists at UofT. Its bathroom is almost exactly as I have described it. I used it once and will never, ever use it again.

* * *

So, if anyone can come up with a good summary for me based on what they've read so far that will _fit_ in a 255 character space, I'm all for it. Any takers? 


	7. Chapter Six

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Six_

All Vicki wanted to do once Henry had dropped her off at home was sleep. It was almost six o'clock in the morning. The sun was going to rise in less than two hours. She didn't want to be awake to see the sunrise. It would mean that she'd stayed up far, far too late.

Unfortunately, she didn't have long to sleep at all. She still had to call her client back, to see if maybe _this _time he would answer and be willing to answer some questions for her. And she had to be awake at noon to call Coreen back. Maybe she should call Mike, to let him know that she'd heard from Coreen and that they were dealing with a kidnapping.

Vicki glanced at the clock and thought better of that idea. Mike would probably be catching a few hours sleep right now, and that sounded like the best thing for her to do as well. Sighing and shaking her head, Vicki made her way to the couch in her office and allowed herself to fall onto it. She fell asleep as soon as she'd moved into a more comfortable position.

---

When Vicki woke, sunlight was streaming through the windows of her office and the clock on her desk read 10 o'clock. There was a bit of snow on the windowsill, and she gave it a spiteful look. The last thing they needed was for the snow to stay. Maybe it would melt by noon.

Shaking her head and rubbing sleep from her eyes, Vicki made her way across the office and picked up her phone. She punched in Mike's cell phone number and put the phone to her ear before beginning to pace back and forth across the office. When Mike answered on the third ring, she stopped pacing and put one of her hands on the top of her desk.

"How quickly can you set up a GPS trace on Coreen's cell phone?" she asked before he could say hello.

"Good morning to you too. If the phone's not on, the GPS tracker isn't going to work, Vic," Mike said. She heard him moving around and the sound of what she thought was typing on a keyboard came through the line to her ear.

"I_know _that, Mike. I heard from Coreen this morning, but she doesn't know where she is," Vicki filled in quickly. The sound of typing stopped, and from the silence from the person on the other end of the phone, she knew that she had Mike's attention. "A blonde vampire matching Katrijn Dench's description is holding her, and was very likely her kidnapper."

"You tell Fitzroy this yet?" Mike asked. Vicki snorted.

"He's asleep. I told Coreen that I would call her back at noon," Vicki glanced again at the clock as she said this. She didn't have much time to finish the conversation with Mike and to try to call Ambrose again before she had to call Coreen.

"Assuming that Ambrose hasn't gone back to his vampire lover to protect her during the day," Mike said. Vicki cringed - she hadn't thought of that.

"Assuming that he hasn't gone back to her to protect her during the day," Vicki repeated. She hoped that he hadn't gone back - somehow, she didn't think that he had. He had reported Katrijn missing. That had to mean that he didn't know where she was. That, or he had reported his vampire lovers missing - and to _her_ instead of the police - as some sort of weird plot to distract her from something. The question was, what was that something?

"I'll set up that track. You're going to call her from your cell?" Mike was asking.

"Wha―? Oh, yeah," Vicki agreed distractedly.

"You okay, Vic?" Mike queried. Vicki sighed.

"I'll be better when this is all over. Talk to you later. Remember - noon," Vicki said, then hung up the phone.

She was starting to feel as though something bigger was going on here. It was one thing when Coreen's being missing and Ambrose's missing people had been completely unrelated events. Now that Arianrhod Geddes and Katrijn Dench were vampires though, and that Coreen had been taken by a vampire, everything was starting to tie together in odd ways that she should have expected, but didn't.

There had to be a reason for Coreen having been taken, but she couldn't figure out what. She could see if it had been the elder vampire that had taken Coreen - that could be viewed as a threat against Henry, a sign that the vampire was trying to take over his territory. For a vampire as young as Katrijn had to be though, Vicki didn't think that it made sense for her to have the same urges. Not that she knew very much about vampire territorialism.

A sudden thought made her pause. What if this was all some sort of elaborate scheme to get Henry's territory away from him? It was rather farfetched, but Vicki could see a vampire as old as Arianrhod - not that she knew how old Arianrhod was - pulling the strings behind and orchestrating a scheme like this. The theory didn't factor in Arianrhod being caught in the middle of some weird binding spell, nor did it explain why she would want to be lying almost unconscious in Henry's apartment, but at least she was starting to get somewhere. No matter how slowly she was getting there.

Shaking her head, Vicki picked up her phone again and redialled the number that Ambrose had given her. Three rings, and again she got the voice mail. Rolling her eyes, Vicki decided that leaving a message would probably be best.

"Ambrose Haward? This is Vicki Nelson calling. I've gotten some leads on the whereabouts of the two women that you reported missing, but I need to speak to you about some of the things that I discovered along the way. If you could come down to my office at…" she paused and glanced at the clock. "7:30 tonight, I would appreciate it. Thank you." And she hung up, the unsure feeling that her client would never get the message sitting in her gut.

Shaking off the feeling, Vicki forced her mind to focus on the next thing that she had to do. They had to track down Coreen, and save her_today_ if they could. And in order for that to happen, she couldn't be worrying as much about where Ambrose Haward was. She could worry about her client later. That was, as long as it didn't turn out that he was still working with Katrijn. Why oh _why _had she allowed that thought to cross her mind?

At five minutes to noon, Vicki dialled Coreen's phone number and put the phone to her ear. When it wasn't answered immediately, she cringed. "Come on, Coreen…" she muttered to herself. "Pick up the phone. Come on…"

"Vicki?" the voice on the other end was soft. Tentative, as though Coreen thought that someone else would happen to call her at the exact time that Vicki said she would.

"Yes. Good, you answered. Coreen, I need you to keep your phone on, okay? I have a trace running on it. We're going to find you, and we're going to get you out of there _now_, before that vampire rises at sun down and discovers what's going on," Vicki said quickly.

Coreen expelled a long breath into the mouthpiece of the phone, and Vicki held hers away from her ear to stave off the staticky sound as it came through. "You're sure there's no one else here?" Coreen asked.

Vicki snorted. "That would be something that you would have to figure out yourself. Since I doubt you can, we're going to hope that there isn't," she said, then made to hang up the phone before adding. "By the way, I have a _pile_ of work for you when you get back here."

Coreen laughed weakly. "Fun work?" she asked.

"You have a misconstrued idea of fun, so let's go with yes," Vicki answered.

"I looked forward to it then," came Coreen's reply. Vicki's office phone began ringing then and she rolled her eyes.

"Coreen, I have to go. Hang tight, we'll be there soon," she said. Coreen said good bye, and Vicki was able to cancel the call on her cell phone and grab the desk phone up in her hand before the ringing stopped.

"Vicki Nelson Investigations," she answered.

"Got the address of the place where Coreen is. Signal came from a house just south of Beverley and College. Ironically enough, the house is on '_Henry' _Street," Mike's voice said through the phone.

Vicki rolled her eyes. "Tell me. Why does that not surprise me?" she asked. Mike laughed.

"Doesn't surprise me either, Vicki. Doesn't surprise me either. Listen, I'll swing by and pick you up, and we can go in together. You're sure there won't be anyone awake but Coreen?" She could have laughed at the way that he said this, and in fact almost did, but then remembered that it was quite possible that Coreen _wasn't_the only person awake in that house.

She hesitated before answering, and Mike prompted her with her name. "Uhh… Almost positive?" she offered. Mike sighed.

"Has to be good enough. I'm on my way now," the detective said, and then hung up. Vicki stared at the phone, buzzing with the dead air, and sighed. Yeah, it would have to be good enough. She didn't know what they were going to do if Ambrose Haward was there. She was sure that they wouldn't be prepared if he was involved in this somehow.

Mike pulled up in front of her building some ten minutes later and she hopped into the passenger side, frowning at him as she did so, because he was frowning at a paper that he was holding in his hand. He passed the sheet of paper to her and she put her glasses on and looked down at it, raised an eyebrow as she read it over.

"Mind explaining that?" Mike asked as he pulled away from the front of the building and onto the road. His eyes were fixed on where he was driving, but there was something in his tone that told her she really wanted to get out of the car and not have this conversation.

"Don't know if I can, Mike. Someone broke into the building where your crime scene is and was sniffing around. It's a university campus. They're kids. They do stuff like that," she replied, putting the paper down on her lap. Mike turned his head so that he could fix her with a glare for a moment before again returning his attention to the road.

"Victoria," Mike said. She didn't need the tone of voice to tell that he was angry with her for evading the question. The use of her full name was enough.

"What?" she snapped. He wasn't really going to make them have this argument here and now, was he? They were on their way to _save_ someone, and all he was concerned about was whether or not she and Henry had done their own looking into the scene where Arianrhod had been found? It wasn't right - for that matter, it wasn't fair. He should have saved this for a time when she would be more prepared to argue her side of it.

"You and Fitzroy were on my crime scene. Explain," he demanded, changing lanes perhaps a bit more abruptly than he should have. Vicki raised an eyebrow at him, deciding that perhaps casualness might help here. After all, besides breaking and entering, she hadn't really done anything wrong.

"I seem to remember Henry telling you that it wasn't a crime scene, Mike," she answered him. '_Ouch. Wrong thing to say,_' she thought to herself immediately afterward as Mike's expression turned into a deep frown. "Besides, we didn't break anything, we didn't take anything, we left it all as it was."

"That's_not the point_, Vicki," Mike replied, turning off of the busy street they were on and onto a slightly less busy side street. "The point is, I told Fitzroy he wasn't looking at the scene, and the two of you went and crossed onto it anyway!" His foot slammed on the brakes of the car as the traffic light ahead of them suddenly turned from yellow to red.

"Do you want to know what we found?" she asked. Mike let out a long sigh and took one of his hands from its stranglehold on the steering wheel to run it through his hair.

"I think you're going to tell me anyway," he replied shortly. Vicki rolled her eyes.

"There wasn't a crime there - not one that you can arrest anyone for anyway," she said, then elaborated. "Henry thinks that some sort of binding spell was performed there. There were candles placed around the room to act as the points of a pentagram, and he found salt, which he said was… I don't know, a spell element or something. He lost me there - that's Coreen's area of expertise, not mine."

"It's_winter_, Vicki!" Mike exclaimed, sounding exasperated. "We saw and recorded the candles, but we use _salt_ for ice melting. Who's to say that the salt wasn't dragged in from people's feet?"

Vicki gave him a flat look and stated, "You don't believe that any more than I do." The detective appeared to struggle with something else that he wanted to say for a long moment, and Vicki held up a hand to stall him. "Besides, it was table salt, not rock salt."

Mike let out a lengthy sigh and turned down another street, then pulled up against the side of the road and put the car into park. "Fine. There was some sort of ritual performed down there, that prohibited the vampire we found from waking for two nights," he said. "Now what? I go to Crowley and tell her that? I can't do that, Vicki. Can that spell that's on the woman be reversed?"

Vicki frowned at him, wondering where the question had come from. "No idea. When we save my assistant," she said pointedly, "Then we can leave her to research it. I'm sure she'll find out if it's possible, and discover the… counter-curse or whatever within a couple of hours."

"You're sure Fitzroy doesn't know?" Mike asked. Vicki rolled her eyes.

"I have no idea whether Henry knows or not. I suspect not, but it was close to dawn when we found this and he had to go back home so that I wouldn't have a pile of ash as a partner. Okay?" she snapped. Mike sighed, and she could see in his face that he was going to back off.

"The house is just down there. Come on," he said, climbing out of the car. Vicki followed, and they made their way down the sidewalk and toward the house that Coreen's cell phone had led them to.

"Everything's going to be okay, Coreen," she muttered to herself. Mike looked at her questioningly, probably thinking that she had been speaking to him, but she simply shook her head and gestured for them to move more quickly.

* * *

Chapter Seven Preview 

"You want me to work, _now_?" Coreen asked, she sounded affronted. "I was just stuck in a basement for who knows how long, with a vampire using me as her refrigerator, and you want me to _work_?"

"We could throw you back to the vampire," Vicki offered. Henry glared at her and then rolled his eyes.

"Not funny, Vicki."

"I thought it was."

* * *

Please, please, please, for your author's sake do not talk about the season finale in your reviews. Her computer hates things that are streamed online, so she hasn't seen the final two episodes.

Thanks!


	8. Chapter Seven

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Seven_

"So, do I remember you telling me that you have no idea whether there's someone home here or not?" Mike asked, looking sceptically at the door of the house in front of them from where they stood on the sidewalk.

"No, I told you that I was almost, but not one hundred percent certain that there was no one but Coreen awake. There's definitely someone home," Vicki replied. Mike was glaring at her again, and she shrugged and returned the look. "I'll go in on my own then," she offered.

Mike snorted. "No, I don't think so," he responded. She shrugged again.

"Then we go in, find Coreen, grab her and leave," Vicki said. Mike was looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

"I dunno, Vic. You think you'll be able to quell your curiosity and dire need to look through people's stuff long enough to do that?" he asked.

Vicki spun to glower at him. "Give it up, Mike. Yeah, I looked at your crime scene. Yeah, it was necessary. No, I don't regret it because it gave us some more clues to help solve this mystery. I'm not apologising, because there's nothing to apologise for. Now can we go in?"

Mike threw up his hands, looking exasperated. "Fine. Let's go," he said. She knew that this wasn't the last she was going to hear of this. He was going to bring it up again the next time he saw Henry, and she had no doubt that he would needle at her until he got an apology - or whatever it was that he was looking for. Until then, though, they had someone to save. She'd take the reluctantly cooperative Mike while she could.

"To ring, or not to ring," Vicki said as they walked up the front steps of the house and onto the small veranda, her eyes fixed on the doorbell. "I say not. What do you think?" she looked at Mike. He had one hand at his side, as though he were ready at any moment to pull his gun.

"I agree. Check to see if it's open," the detective said. Vicki raised her eyebrows at him.

"Weren't you just railing at me for breaking and entering?" she asked cheekily. She could only imagine the look that Mike was giving her as she tested the doorknob and pushed on the door. When it came open, she looked back at Mike with surprise splashed across her face.

"Careless," he commented. She nodded slowly in agreement. It was definitely very careless. They couldn't have the wrong house, could they? It would be just her luck if they did.

They both slipped into the house and Mike clicked the door shut behind them, his gun out and steady as he looked around quickly. "Don't bother," she muttered to him. He gave her a flat look.

"Rushing in isn't the best idea, Vicki," he said in a manner that made her think that he was trying to scold her.

"Neither is this," she said resignedly before shouting out, "Coreen!" Beside her Mike cringed, but she didn't pause to continue the conversation with him. Instead, she made her way further into the house. "Stairs… Stairs…" she murmured, opening various doors as she moved through the hallway. It wasn't a very big house - where could the staircase be hidden?

"Find anything, Mike?" she called. From somewhere behind and a little bit to the side of her - Mike was in a different room - she heard a door hit against a wall.

"I've got stairs," he called back. Vicki made her way at a quick walk to where he was, and looked down the stairs. "And a flashlight," he added, pulling it out of his pocket when she gave him an annoyed look. The stairs led down into pitch black, and somehow, Vicki didn't think that there was a light fixture of any sort.

"Okay. So we find Coreen. She has to be down there somewhere," Vicki said.

"If we find the vampire, do we stake her?" Mike asked. Vicki shook her head.

"Don't think Henry would appreciate that. I'm sure he wants to do it himself. Besides, did you bring a stake?" she asked dryly. Mike looked sheepish for a moment, and her dry expression contorted to one of disbelief.

"I might have a makeshift one in the car," Mike offered. Vicki rolled her eyes. Unbelievable.

"Right. Leave it there," Vicki said after a few moments of trying to figure out exactly _what_ she was supposed to say to something like that. Mike chuckled and moved the flashlight a bit to indicate that they needed to start moving down the stairs. As though she needed a reminder.

At the bottom of the stairs - which Vicki had quickly discovered were rather rickety and steep and probably needed to be replaced - they came to a small open room with two doors in the walls, presumably leading to two different rooms.

"Twenty on Coreen being in that one," Vicki said, indicating one of the doors. It was padlocked shut on the outside, and Mike let out a quick laugh.

"I'm not taking that," he said, walking up to the lock and tugging on it. When it didn't give, he put his hands in his pockets and turned back to her. "So, now what?" he asked.

Vicki banged on the door. "Coreen? You in there?" she called through it. She put her ear to the door, and heard shuffling coming from the other side for a moment before she pulled her ear away because someone on the other side was hitting the door in response.

"Vicki!" It was definitely Coreen's voice, and Vicki heaved a sigh of relief. Her assistant sounded a bit shaken, maybe a little tired, but otherwise okay.

"Okay, there's a padlock here, so it's going to take a few minutes before we can actually get you out. Hang tight," Vicki said, extracting her lock picking kit from her pocket. Mike frowned at her as she set to picking the padlock open.

"I shouldn't be seeing this," she heard him murmur. She rolled her eyes and took the lock off of the door as it clicked open.

"You telling me there's something illegal about rescuing people, Mike?" she asked, turning the doorknob and pulling the door open. A split second later, she had an armful of shaking Coreen. She returned the hug - though without quite as much force as Coreen was squeezing her with - and patted the girl on the back.

"It's okay. Let's go, alright?" she said softly. Coreen nodded and Vicki pulled back out of the hug.

"I'm so glad to see you," Coreen whispered.

"Good to see you too," Vicki replied, leaning forward so that she could get a better look at the multitude of bite marks that were on Coreen's neck. "Yowch. Apparently, you taste good." Coreen let out a nervous giggle and shook her head at the comment.

---

"So, what do you know about binding spells?" Vicki asked Coreen a few hours later when they were again seated in her office. She'd given Coreen time to take a bath, change and had gotten her something to eat, but she was beginning to feel the weight of the need to solve this case pushing down on her again. Which of course meant that she couldn't give Coreen any further time to recover, even though she was sure that somewhere in her heart, she wanted to.

"What kind of binding spells?" Coreen asked. Vicki gave her a blank look.

"There are different kinds of binding spells?" she asked. Coreen nodded, the expression that she was wearing saying that this was quite obvious and that Vicki should have known it. Well, Vicki hadn't, and apparently, Henry hadn't either. Unless he'd been hiding how much he knew from her so as not to make her feel too, too stupid.

Papers rustled in the office then, and both Vicki and Coreen looked up toward the doorway to see Henry standing on the threshold. He nodded to Coreen as he crossed the room to stand next to the desk, and then immediately turned his attention to Vicki.

"You know where one of the vampires is staying then?" he asked. Vicki tilted her head toward him.

"No hello? Coreen gets a nod, but I don't even get an acknowledgement?" she asked with a grin to - hopefully - show that she was joking. Henry's mouth twisted into a smile.

"Hello, Vicki," he said, over enunciating the words.

"Hi, Henry," she said, then turned back to the book that was sitting on the desk between her and Coreen. "And yes, we know where one of the vampires is staying. No idea how long she'll be there though." she added. Henry let out a frustrated noise.

"Heard from your client yet?" he asked. Vicki shook her head, then snapped her head up to look at Coreen.

"I need you to see if you can find out who a cell phone number is registered to," she said. Coreen gave her a look of disgust.

"You want me to work, _now_?" she asked, sounding affronted. "I was just stuck in a basement for who knows how long, with a vampire using me as her refrigerator, and you want me to _work_?"

"Refrigerator?" Vicki repeated, temporarily distracted. "What kind of metaphor is that?"

"Never mind that," Coreen said with a roll of her eyes. "Shouldn't you just be happy that I'm alive or something instead of putting me straight to work?"

"We could throw you back to the vampire," Vicki offered. "I don't really _need_ to pay another person, do I?" Henry glared at her and then rolled his eyes.

"Not funny, Vicki," he stated shortly.

"I thought it was," Vicki replied with a sweet smile in his direction. He appeared to be biting the inside of his lip, though if it was because he was fighting the urge to smile or the urge to scowl, she had no idea.

Vicki returned her attention to Coreen and smiled at her as she said, "So, here's the number." And passed Ambrose's number across the desk to her. Coreen looked at the phone number on the small piece of cardboard and frowned.

"He gave you this when he'd only been in the city for two days?" she asked, sounding surprised. "That's weird."

"I know," Vicki agreed. "So, will you see what you can find? Please?"

Coreen gave a long, over exaggerated sigh. "Since you asked so nicely," she replied, "I'll get right on it." And she scooted past Henry and out into the main part of the office to get her computer.

"So, Katrijn Dench? Where's she staying?" Henry asked again. Vicki raised her eyebrow and tilted back her chair so that she was sitting looking up at him, arms folded across her chest.

"Do you really need to know so badly?" she asked. Something in Henry's face tightened, and Vicki began to sense that it was almost time to stop teasing the vampire and to tell him what he wanted to know. Or to tell him that she _wasn't_ going to tell him what he wanted to know. Vampire or not, if the blonde who had kidnapped Coreen was being searched for by her client, then she had a responsibility to make sure that she stayed alive. Telling an angry Henry where she was would not be a good way to ensure that.

"Vicki…" Henry had a warning tone to his voice, and she sighed.

"I'm not telling you," she said flatly. The vampire grit his teeth.

"Aren't we supposed to be working together?" he asked, and suddenly he was too close. Not that she minded it when he… No, bad thoughts. He had begun trailing his fingers through the ends of her hair, and was leaning over her shoulder, his face close to her neck. Definitely too close, and if she didn't move, she was very likely to tell him_exactly_ what he wanted to know. Damn vampire.

Vicki pulled away from him and spun her chair around, so Henry was forced to back up a few steps or be kicked. "You learned that from Detective Celluci," he protested. She gave him a confused look for a moment, before remembering that Mike had done the same thing when Henry had been looking over his shoulder at the police station, and she let out a laugh.

"Well, we did used to be partners. And I'm not telling you where that woman is staying," she said. Henry was looking past her and into the other room, where she could hear Coreen typing away at the keyboard of her laptop.

"Coreen would, if I asked her," he said. Vicki clenched her teeth and stood up, distracting Henry from his focus on the girl in the other room and making him look down at her.

"Oh no. Don't you dare vamp Coreen," she warned. Henry gave her an eloquent look, that clearly asked her how she thought he was going to stop him if he tried.

"You know that space you were vying for on the letterhead?" she asked, and she knew that he knew that they were discussing something completely different. It felt a bit like blackmail, but hey, blackmail worked well when it was used properly. "Yeah. It won't happen."

She could swear that the vampire was pouting. Score one for her. "Look, Henry. I know that you want - hell, _need_ - to know where the woman is. But if we can't track down Ambrose, then we're going to need her. Preferably able to speak and still in one piece."

"I can do that," Henry objected. She gave him a flat look, and he let out a long sigh. "Fine. I'll leave her alone. Until we find out the counter to the spell that's on the other one. Then, I want them both together, and I want to know what they're doing in my territory." He paused here, as though to make sure that she was listening. "I get free reign when we get to that point, Vicki." he continued, as though in warning.

"Whatever you say, Your Majesty," she replied, then looked past him. She really didn't need to deal with a moodier-than-usual Henry. Vampires needed to stop coming to town. She was sure that it would improve his disposition. "Find anything yet, Coreen?"

* * *

Chapter Eight Preview

"You're sure this is going to work?" Vicki asked sceptically, staring at the woman lying prone in front of them. She saw Coreen hesitate, and then nod out of the corner of her eye.

"Usually you'd need the blood of the person who originally cast the spell, but I think the blood of another vampire_ should_ substitute just fine," she said, consulting the Grimoire in her hands.

"You_think_?"


	9. Chapter Eight

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Eight_

"Are you sure that phone number's in service, Vicki?" Coreen asked, leaning forward toward her computer screen, Vicki and Henry exchanged looks, and as one they made their way over to where Coreen was sitting.

"I got voice mail both times I called, so I assume so, why?" she asked, sceptically. Coreen frowned.

"Well as far as I can tell, the phone definitely isn't registered to a 'Ambrose Haward.' In fact, Ambrose Haward doesn't have an account with any of the phone companies at all," Coreen said. She moved her finger across the touchpad of the computer and clicked on something.

"Who is the phone registered to?" Henry asked. Coreen looked up at him, and then back at the screen.

"Some woman. Name of," here, Coreen snorted. "Jane Deer."

"Ouch," Vicki commented. "Do we know if Miss Deer is still alive?" she queried.

"No, but I can find out. I've got her home phone number here too," Coreen said, and copied it down on a notepad. She handed the phone number to Vicki. "Now, what else did you want me to look up? Binding spells?"

Vicki nodded, making her way into the other room with the notepad and phone number in hand. Coreen made a noise of protest, "Don't you want to know what I know about them?" she called after her. Vicki spun in place

"Usually you have to do a bunch of research first," the blonde woman pointed out.

"Yeah, when we're dealing with really obscure things. From the way you described it, this binding spell that was cast sounds like it had some sort of basis in Wicca. Of course, since the target was clearly harmed when the spell was cast, the caster can't actually be Wiccan," Coreen said quickly. Vicki blinked at her.

"So we're not looking for a Wiccan. Great. When you find something else, tell me, okay?" Vicki said. Coreen held up her hand to stop her from continuing her walk into the other room. "Coreen, I have a phone call to make," Vicki said through gritted teeth.

"I know. But finish listening first, okay?" Coreen requested. "With a spell like that, there's probably some sort of poppet involved. If we can find the poppet, we can undo the spell. If we can't, well, it'll be a bit more difficult, and I'll have to do more research," she said.

"A poppet?" Vicki asked blankly.

"Like a voodoo doll, sort of, but without the voodoo," Coreen filled in. Vicki looked toward Henry, who was shaking his head slowly.

"Can't be," he said. "It would take a lot more Wiccans than just one to subdue a vampire the way she was subdued. There was black magic involved there," the vampire said. Vicki chewed on her lip.

"You sure?" she asked. Henry nodded quickly, and Coreen threw up her hands.

"Fine. No Wicca and no poppets then. I was hoping this would be _easy_ for once," the Goth girl complained.

"I didn't say there couldn't be a poppet involved," Henry objected. "I just said that it wasn't likely to be a Wiccan spell."

Coreen frowned. "Okay. So you said there were salt and candles around the barrier of the circle? Candles to hold the parts of the pentagram, and salt to keep things out and mark the circle…" she said slowly, writing these things down on another piece of paper as she said them. She sketched something on the page that Vicki suspected was a rough drawing of what the scene had looked like. "Any runes?" she asked.

Henry shook his head and bent over the desk to look at the drawing that Coreen was putting together. "No. But the body was here," he pointed to a spot on the paper. "And the chalk outline of her body was like this," he plucked the pen from Coreen's hand and drew it on the paper. "Which is why I agree with your thought of a poppet being involved."

Coreen was nodding, and Vicki rolled her eyes. "Okay, when the two of you start speaking English and talking about things that I understand, come and find me. I'm going to see if I can get a hold of Jane Deer."

"Wax or sewn?" Coreen was asking Vicki, apparently without having heard her. The PI rolled her eyes and walked over to her phone. She stared at the number that Coreen had written down on the paper and let out a long breath. Well, here went nothing.

Vicki cradled the receiver between her shoulder and ear as she dialled the number into the phone, then switched the phone to her hand as it began to ring. Two rings later, a woman answered with a quick, "Hello?"

"Jane Deer?" Vicki asked. Maybe she was finally going to get somewhere with this investigation. It was about time.

"Speaking," the woman replied. "Who is this?"

"My name's Vicki Nelson, I'm a Private Investigator. Have you lost your cell phone, Miss Deer?" she asked. There was no point in beating around the bush about it - she wouldn't have known where to start when she was randomly calling a woman on the phone anyway.

"My cell phone?" the woman repeated, sounding rather stunned. "I… I don't think so. Let me check," there was a shuffling sound on the other side of the phone, which Vicki assumed was the woman digging through her purse. Then she heard a crackling come through the phone and the breathing at the other end disappeared.

A few minutes later, the woman returned. "I believe I may have, Miss Nelson. Do you have it?" she asked.

"No, I don't, but I think that a client of mine stole it. Do you mind not cancelling your service for a few days until I clear something up? I can promise to reimburse you whatever the costs end up being," Vicki said quickly. She heard Jane Deer's breath hitch and then change in pace.

"Is someone in trouble?" the woman asked.

"Someone may be. Can you please, just don't cancel the service?" Vicki requested again.

"I― Alright. Could I have your number, Miss Nelson?" Jane asked. Vicki gave it to her, then thanked her and hung up the phone. She looked up to find Henry standing in the door, his arms crossed.

"So?" Henry asked. Vicki let out a long sigh and put her head in her hands.

"Hypothetically, could you hypnotise someone into giving you their cell phone and then forgetting they did it, so that they wouldn't wonder about it until it was actually brought to their attention?" she asked. Henry raised his eyebrow.

"If, for any reason, I really wanted to steal someone's cell phone, then yes. Though I would likely make them forget that they had a cell phone altogether. Why?" the vampire asked. Vicki let out another sigh.

"Because I think that's how Ambrose Haward came to have Jane Deer's cell phone," she replied. Henry's eyebrow shot up, until she swore that they were going to disappear into his hairline.

"It was an amateur mistake to make if by mentioning her cell phone, you were able to make her realise that she didn't have it any longer," he commented.

"Exactly," Vicki replied emphatically.

"You think Katrijn Dench did the hypnotising," Henry said. Vicki nodded, and Henry narrowed his eyes. "But why not Arianrhod? She would have done it properly."

"That's the question, isn't it?" Vicki replied.

They lapsed into silence, Henry with his head tilted back and his eyes staring unseeingly at the ceiling, Vicki tapping her fingers on the surface of the desk, lips pursed as she thought it over. There was more at work here than they were realising, she was sure. What hadn't Ambrose told her?

"I found something!" Coreen called from the other room. She and Henry looked at each other before both rushed to gather around where the brunette had a large old book open on the table in front of her.

---

A few hours later they were in Henry's apartment, gathered around the couch where Arianrhod Geddes was lying, her eyes closed, still in the same state as she had been when Vicki had first seen her. The woman frequently took on an expression that made Vicki think she was being tortured. She surely wasn't having a _nice _or _peaceful_ sleep. Or anything that came close to resembling one.

"I don't like this," Henry said, and not for the first time. He had gone all vampire on them, and Vicki let out a long sigh, meeting the black eyes with a frown. "Don't give me that look, Vicki. I don't like this, and I'm not going to change my mind about it."

"Think about how much we're going to find out from her though. If this works. Or, well, if we can make it work," Vicki paused, furrowed her brow and looked at Coreen. "You're sure this is going to work?" she asked sceptically, glancing back toward the woman lying prone before them. She saw Coreen hesitate, and then nod out of the corner of her eye.

"Usually you'd need the blood of the person who originally cast the spell, but I think the blood of another vampire_ should_ substitute just fine," she said, consulting the Grimoire in her hands. Vicki hit her palm to her forehead.

"You_think_?" she demanded. Coreen shrugged.

"I don't see you finding anything that might work better," she protested. Vicki looked toward Henry for help, but he simply crossed his arms against his chest.

"I'm find with leaving her like this," the vampire stated. Vicki rolled her eyes.

"Okay. When you're going to grow up and stop acting like a moody child, tell me," she snapped. She rubbed her hands together and looked back at Coreen. "Right. Let's try this. Henry's blood, what else?" Henry made a noise, but Vicki ignored him. She _really_ couldn't wait until this was over.

"Well, obvious if we had the initial poppet that was made for the spell, it would help. Instead, we're going to have to make one," she said, and held up a candle and a knife. Vicki raised an eyebrow.

"I thought voodoo dolls were made out of like… potato sack material sewn up with yarn and using buttons for eyes," she commented. It was Coreen's turn to roll her eyes.

"Poppet, not voodoo doll," she said. "And since there wasn't any herb residues near the scene," she looked at Henry for confirmation on this, and the vampire nodded once. "Then it was probably a wax poppet that the person who cast the spell took with them for safe keeping. Once we find the person that cast the spell, we're going to need to find that poppet too, and give it to her," she gestured at Arianrhod, "So that no one can use it again."

"Can't just destroy it?" Vicki asked. Coreen's eyes widened and she shook her head.

"Not without harming the person that it was made in the image of," she replied. Vicki nodded slowly - okay, so that made sense.

"Okay. So wax poppet, Henry's blood…" Vicki trailed off and pointed to the other things that Coreen had gathered. "Candles for the pentagram, and salt, and… What is that?" she asked, gesturing at another bottle.

"Rain water," Coreen replied. Vicki raised an eyebrow.

"Tell me you didn't buy that," she requested. Coreen shrugged, looking sheepish. "You have to be kidding me." Vicki rolled her eyes.

"It's purified rain water, okay? I had to go to an occult store to find it - we need it for the spell and it's not exactly going to rain anytime soon," Coreen objected. Vicki gave her an exasperated look.

"Remind me to give you a talk on naivety later," she commented. Coreen glared at her and made a harrumphing noise, then returned to her Grimoire.

"Okay, so let's see…" she muttered, then got up and began placing the candles around the room. Once they were in place she gathered up the salt and looked apologetically at Henry. "I'll clean this up after, promise," she said, before walking around where she'd laid the candles and spreading a circle of salt. Then she went around lighting the candles before returning to the centre of the circle and sitting back down beside them.

"Okay. Candles, salt…" she muttered. "Now, the poppet…" she looked at the woman on the couch, then the knife and candle before her, and passed them to Henry. "You're the artist," she said. The vampire rolled his eyes, but accepted the candle and the knife.

He started carving at the candle, hands moving at a normal pace at first, before they blurred and became impossible to follow. Minutes later, the taper was carved into a very good likeness of the woman on the couch. He passed it back to Coreen along with the knife, and she beamed at him.

"Thank you," she said. He nodded once, and she returned her attention to the Grimoire. She looked between it and the poppet a few times, before frowning and then looking at the woman on the couch.

"Okay…" she muttered. "Henry, I need your blood now. Just a little spot will be fine." Vicki was rather thankful that Coreen was too busy pouring over her book to see the angry expression that Henry's face contorted into when she said this.

"Henry," Vicki muttered quietly. The man appeared to chew his lip for a moment, before he raised his thumb to his mouth and punctured the pad of the digit with one long fang. He held out his hand to Coreen, and she grabbed hold of it and pressed the wound to the head of the poppet. The object in her hand glowed for a long moment as Henry took his hand back, the wound knitting back up as she watched, and when she returned her attention to the poppet, the blood stain appeared to be right in the wax.

"Now what?" Vicki asked, looking up at Arianrhod. The woman had jerked when the poppet had glowed, and she noticed that Henry was watching the other vampire carefully as well, no doubt unable to trust what was going to happen.

"If we were _casting_ the binding spell, we'd wrap the poppet up. Since we're trying to _remove_ it though, I'm going to cut the patch out, and then bless the object with the rain water and the salt. Then, if it works properly, she should wake up. If it doesn't, we're going to need to track down the original poppet," Coreen explained.

She fell silent then and very carefully carved the red spot out of the wax. She let it fall to the floor, and then sprinkled rain water and salt onto the wax sculpture. She was mumbling something under her breath that Vicki couldn't hear, but she was fairly sure from the emotions playing across Henry's face that he could clearly hear every word.

"…be done," Coreen breathed. The poppet started glowing again, and as the light that was coming from it died down, the three of them turned their attention, as one, to look at Arianrhod. The woman was stirring, and then, suddenly, she blinked her eyes open and turned her head to stare at them. Vicki caught sight of beautiful, but very cold, ice blue eyes, before she was aware of a burning sensation in her wrists and she gasped and felt herself tumble forward as the world went black.

* * *

Chapter Nine Preview

"I can explain! Please, allow me to!" the woman's voice held a strange accent that Vicki couldn't place, but she was sure that Henry could - he certainly looked as though he were able to place it anyway. Unless that look was just his last effort at self-restraint before he lashed out at the invading vampire. Hmm. That was very, very possible.

"One chance," Henry breathed through his fangs.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Nine_

When Vicki awoke, it was to feel a surge of immediate embarrassment as she became aware enough to find herself lying with her head in someone's lap. When a tad bit of further inspection found that lap to belong to Henry, she could feel her cheeks turn pink. She felt trembles run through Henry and looked up at him to find that the man was laughing softly - no doubt at her discomfort.

His laughing quickly subsided though and even from her position she could see that his eyes were hardening, looking straight ahead at something else. She turned her head slightly so that she was able to see what he was looking at, but he shifted suddenly so that she was again looking up at him. She felt one of his hands close gently around her right wrist and his thumb ran over the place on her wrist where Astaroth's tattoo was located.

"How do you feel?" he asked, voice low, tone serious. There was something to the question other than a simple concern for her welfare, that much she could tell. What the undertone was though, or who it was directed at, she had no idea. She only suspected that it wasn't her. Who else was in the room then? Coreen, she knew, but Henry didn't have any reason that she could think of to direct that underlying tone at Coreen. But who else then?

Vicki's eyes scanned his face, looking for clues to what could have provoked the tone, as she tried to remember what had happened to have her wake up with her head lying in his lap. She knew they were in his condo, and she remembered the spell that Coreen had been casting. She even remembered the piercing, yet incredibly confused gaze that Arianrhod had bore as the work with the poppet had brought her back to consciousness.

After that though, there was nothing. She didn't think too much time had elapsed between then and now. Well, she _hoped_ too much time hadn't elapsed. "I… I'm okay. Yeah, I think I'm good," Vicki said, putting one hand out to the side so that she could use the floor to push herself up into a sitting position. Henry's hands moved to her lower back to brace her as she sat up, and she told herself that the reason she moved more quickly after that wasn't because the contact made her nervous, but because it was actually helping her to sit up that much quicker.

She couldn't persuade herself of it, and she was pretty sure that it was the last thing that crossed Henry's mind as he pulled his hands away. "Are you sure?" he asked. His voice was still carrying the same undertone and Vicki frowned at him.

"Yes, Henry, I'm sure," she replied. There came a twinkling laugh from behind her and she spun to find the woman who had been previously unconscious on the couch was now quite awake. There was a look in her eyes that Vicki couldn't quite place, but she thought that it might be longing. Longing for what? She allowed herself to wonder briefly.

"You see? I did not harm her. I did nothing," the vampire said softly. Vicki frowned at her, taking in the hospital gown-styled garment that she was wearing. Vicki hadn't noticed it before when the woman had been unconscious - it had seemed _normal_ when she'd been unconscious - but now, Vicki was pretty sure that the woman was going to want clothes. For that matter, _she_ was pretty sure that she wanted the woman to have clothes.

"Keep quiet," Henry growled, eyes turning black and fangs extending for the brief phrase before his fangs retracted and his eyes returned to normal and he turned his attention back to Vicki. The woman muttered something that Vicki couldn't make out, but a scowl briefly crossed Henry's face, though he didn't address whatever it was that she had said.

"Are you Arianrhod Geddes?" Vicki queried of her. Surprise flashed through the blue eyes, and the woman gave a slow nod.

"How do you know me?" she asked softly. Henry let out a low growl beside her and she elbowed him.

"I'm a Private Investigator. I have a client who hired me to look for you and another woman. Do you know a Katrijn?" Vicki asked, quite expecting what the response was going to be.

Just as she'd thought, Arianrhod's eyes lit up hopefully. "You know of Katrijn? You know where she can be found?" Okay, so the foreign name sounded a dozen times better when the vampire said it. It even sounded somehow less _foreign_ when the vampire said it. Almost.

"As of last night―"

"Vicki," Henry interrupted in a warning tone. She looked toward him and cocked her head to one side. His look was eloquent, and she let out a long sigh. This wasn't going to be good. Henry nodded to her as she mimed zipping her mouth shut, and he turned his attention back to Arianrhod.

"You still haven't told me why you're here. Your _tag-along_―"

"Lover."

"―has threatened my territory. You were incapacitated in _my_ cityand _I_ was the one to help you. _You owe me_," Henry snarled, ignoring the brief interruption that Arianrhod had made. Vicki and Coreen shared looks. This wasn't going to turn out well. Arianrhod seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Vicki, because suddenly she looked fearful, afraid of Henry.

"I can explain! Please, allow me to!" the stress in woman's voice brought out a strange accent that Vicki couldn't place, but she was sure that Henry could - he certainly looked as though he were able to place it anyway. Unless that look was just his last effort at self-restraint before he lashed out at the invading vampire. Hmm. That was very, very possible.

"One chance," Henry breathed through his fangs. Vicki cringed at the tone of voice. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to be here right now, especially if the shit was going to hit the fan. However, she also knew that there was no way that she was going to leave Henry alone here. Not around a mysterious vampire of unknown power who had just woken up from a state that had to have been induced by a rather powerful enemy.

"You know of the curse," Arianrhod's voice was barely a whisper, and Henry's face showed no emotion as he stared her down. He was going to let her speak, but he wasn't going to give her any sympathy. "I wanted to show Katrijn the world before I drove her away." The woman let out a bitter laugh and then a sad sounding sigh. "Ambrose is our third. Katrijn was torn between us; I didn't - couldn't - make her choose. She will need a companion later."

Henry raised an eyebrow and looked as though he were going to comment here, but then his expression flattened again and he made a brief gesture, telling the woman to continue speaking. Arianrhod grimaced and then continued speaking, her tone a bit frenzied as though she was quite certain that Henry's final judgment would be the same no matter what she said.

"When we arrived in the city," she shook her head, confusion smearing itself across her features. "I'm not quite certain what happened, but somehow we were all separated." She let out a bitter laugh, and Vicki said Henry shuffle out of the corner of her eye, as though something about the story was bothering him.

"I thought I had seen Ambrose, but then I lost something. I felt as though I had lost myself - does that make sense?" she shook her head again before continuing. "Then I woke up here," she finished, and though it should have been a rather lame punch line, the way in which the woman delivered it made Vicki actually feel sorry for her.

Henry snarled through bared fangs, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't rip out your throat now, and then go after your child and do the same to her."

Arianrhod's blue eyes flashed as she snapped. "The blood would ruin your upholstery." Henry let out another low snarl, not appreciating the answer, and the woman spoke again. "There is someone in your city with the ability to incapacitate a vampire. If I had not been found, I could easily have been left to meet the sun. You could be next."

"I know this city, for anyone to catch me―"

"That is the cockiness that will get you caught," Arianrhod snarled over him. "I have no care for helping you, but as I suspect that you will not help me to find Katrijn unless I do, I will agree to it."

Vicki blinked. "Hey, wait. We didn't _ask_ you to help us. We're plenty capable of solving this on our own, thanks." The vampire looked at her with something like disdain in her features and blinked twice, apparently trying to comprehend this. Then she returned her attention to Henry as though Vicki hadn't even spoken.

"I agree with Vicki. You will give us a phone number where we will be able to reach you. You will stay out of my way, and you will not hunt in the downtown core. When we have figured out what is going on, we will call you," Henry stated. Arianrhod stiffened, then slowly relaxed and shifted, looking for all the world like a bird ruffling her feathers - or a pissed off cat with her hair standing on end. Something that they didn't need to deal with anyway.

"I will need clothes if I am to travel to my hotel," the woman said. Vicki heard a noise from Coreen beside her that may or may not have been a snort - if Arianrhod heard the same noise, then she ignored it.

"That can be arranged," Henry replied in clipped tones.

---

"Not the friendliest creature, is she?" Vicki asked drolly a little while after the woman had left. Henry let out a brief laugh before smoothing his hands down across his face.

"She was scared," he said blandly. "Which is what I was aiming for. She's more likely to toe the line on the restrictions that I placed on her if she stays scared." He let out a sigh and dropped down onto the couch that Arianrhod had vacated when she left, his eyes following Coreen around the room as she scrambled to try and clean up all of the salt that she'd scattered across the floor.

Vicki nodded. "So, who do you think put the spell on her?" she asked. In her own mind, she already had a pretty strong hunch of who it was, but she wanted to see if Henry thought the same before she suggested it.

"I don't know," the vampire admitted after a moment. "But whoever it is, I think that they were solely after Arianrhod. I don't think she wanted to show Katrijn the world - or at least, that wasn't her only reason for coming to Toronto. Either she knew that someone was after her, or she suspected that someone was after her, and she was hopping across the globe and trying to throw them off."

Vicki raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly. It was a reasonable explanation, however… "Why Toronto though? And why a basement bathroom on a university campus?"

Henry squinted his eyes, staring up at the ceiling for a few long moments as he thought this over. "She may have gotten lost when she arrived in Toronto. If she was thrown off balance, it may have given her stalker enough time to get close to her."

"Why didn't she fight them off?" Vicki asked, right on top of the end of his sentence. "She's a vampire."

"Surprise, maybe? Maybe she knew them," Henry offered. "As for the bathroom location for the spell, maybe whoever cast it was trying not to get caught - and wasn't quite set on what they were doing."

Vicki widened her eyes, "Someone she knew… Someone who was unsure. Henry, could Ambrose have betrayed her?" Ambrose had been her first guess anyway, but it had been almost a shot in the dark. The deductions that Henry had made, however, made it seem far more likely that it had been he who had done the spell casting. After all, he was probably the only human who could get close enough to Arianrhod without her suspecting anything.

"Could be," Henry said quietly. "But why?"

"Maybe he wanted her out of the way so that he could have Katrijn to himself. You know, the jealous lover strives out because they're feeling neglected or as though they're going to lose the other person entirely. And he probably knew that he wouldn't actually have a chance at _killing_ Arianrhod," Vicki offered. Henry nodded, his eyes narrowed.

Vicki's cell phone rang then, and she jumped at the sound before she recognised it for what it was and grabbed it from her pocket. She frowned at the number on the screen, "What do you want, Mike?" she wondered aloud as she hit the button to answer the phone.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know a Jane Deer?" Mike asked. She could tell by the tone of voice that he was in full detective mode, and with the name that he had spoken, she was pretty sure that she didn't want him in full detective mode.

"We've spoken once, briefly, because I had to call her for an investigation. Why?"

"Because she's dead, Vicki. Why else?"

Coreen and Henry both spun, looking at her flabbergasted as she cursed loudly and allowed the phone to drop to the floor. This was the absolute _last_ thing that she needed right now.

* * *

Chapter Ten Preview 

"It had to be Ambrose. He found out I called her, and he doesn't want to be found, so he killed her," Vicki muttered.

"Great. So now you don't have a lead to follow."

Vicki glanced at the clock on the desk. "Sure I do. Quick, if we hurry, we can get there before sunrise."


	11. Chapter Ten

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Ten_

"What is it?" Henry asked promptly, as soon as Vicki had hung up the phone, still cursing under her breath. She looked up at him and grumbled wordlessly.

"My lead's dead," she snapped. Henry cringed and rubbed his brow with his fingers. This case was becoming exhausting - and she was wondering when it had become more than just finding a few missing people. Now they were trying to find the man who had initially been the one who had been _found_. It just didn't make sense.

"What're you going to do?" Henry asked. Vicki slipped her glasses off and played with them as she thought.

"Let homicide figure out who killed her. Then figure out another way to find Ambrose Haward so that we can figure out if he's the one who attacked Arianrhod or not. If he is, we turn him over to her and let her deal with him," Vicki said, putting her glasses back on and looking at Henry in time to see him raise an eyebrow.

"You're okay with handing a man over to his death," the vampire asked, his tone delicate. Vicki let out a frustrated sigh.

"That's really what she'd do to him?" she questioned. The flat look that Henry was giving her told her that she was being naïve, but sometimes she encountered instances of her own naivety in the most unusual places in this job. Especially when she was dealing with the vampiric way of surviving.

"Without a doubt," he replied in a low tone. "If it was Ambrose who put her in her state of comatose, then he is a larger threat to her than I am. It won't matter what the relation between Katrijn and Ambrose is, nor will it matter the reason that Arianrhod was allowing him to travel with them. She'll kill him. It's instinct."

Vicki churned this over in her mind. Henry had brought up a good point; was she really alright with just handing a man over to certain death if she found him? Arianrhod was a big girl, she could take care of herself. Why should Vicki help to find Ambrose - if indeed, it was Ambrose who had been behind the attack. They were still riding on that assumption. It could be dangerous to do so, really.

"It's what you would do," Vicki stated blandly. Henry nodded once in response, as she knew that he would. He didn't know Arianrhod, but he knew his base nature as a vampire, and if he said that instinct would drive Arianrhod to kill whoever had attacked her, then Vicki knew that it was exactly what the red-haired woman would do.

Which left her with one question. If she could stop the death of Arianrhod's attacker - somehow talk the vampire down from it - would she? She frowned, and saw that Henry was watching her closely. Whoever had attacked Arianrhod hadn't actually killed her - true, what they had done had been as good as, but she had been saved. So, attempted murder then… But was it really murder when the victim was already dead?

"This Jane Deer, she was the real owner of the cell phone number that our client had given you, right?" Henry asked. Vicki nodded and out of the corner of her eye she saw Coreen do the same. "So, the question there is - do you believe that Ambrose Haward killed Jane Deer?"

Vicki frowned, then slowly nodded. It was entirely possible - in fact, it was the most likely possibility. If Haward had somehow found out that Vicki had contacted Jane Deer and had found out what she had said to the woman during that conversation, then he could very likely have justified in his mind that killing the woman was the only way to keep himself hidden. If that was what he was trying to do anyway.

"None of this makes any sense," Vicki muttered. It made so little sense that it was giving her a headache. "First, Coreen doesn't come into work. Then Ambrose Haward comes into my office and begins paying me to find two women. One of them turns up in the City Morgue, the client disappears when I try to find him, and then Coreen and the second missing woman show up together, her having kidnapped Coreen."

She ran her hands down her face. She wanted to scream. A long, aggravated scream would make her feel a lot better, but it wouldn't do anything to help the situation. "Finally, we figure out that the only way for my client to have the cell phone he has would be for a vampire to hypnotise the owner into giving it to him."

"So at one point, two of them were working together. I think it's safe to assume that those two were Katrijn and Haward," Henry stated.

Vicki nodded. "Why kidnap Coreen though? Why not just feed off of her, make her forget, and then leave?" She ignored Coreen's offended sounding protest at this - she could stroke her assistant's hurt feelings later.

Henry shook his head and said, "I can't think of any reason for it."

Vicki began pacing the room, muttering under her breath. "It had to be Ambrose. He had to have been the one who killed Jane Deer, who cast the spell on Arianrhod. He found out that I called her and he doesn't want to be found, so he killed her."

"And now you have no lead to follow," Henry said, reiterating her earlier words. She nodded slowly, then paused and shook her head, before glancing at the clock on her desk. "Sure we do. And if we hurry, we can get there before sunrise."

Henry frowned at her and raised an eyebrow. "Who? Katrijn?" he asked, "Do you think she'll answer your questions if she's in on it?"

Vicki shrugged. "She might not be in on it. And if she is, the worst she can do is kick us out. If she tries to fight us, well, I'm sure you'll be able to overpower her easily." A little flattery never did any harm. Besides that, it was true. How likely was it that a vampire who was barely a month dead would be able to take on a vampire who was nearly five hundred years dead?

"Vicki…" Henry said, his tone warning, his expression telling her that he was unimpressed with her idea.

"You don't have to come, I know where I'm going," she responded. As she said it, she stood and glanced around the living room, eyes searching for where she had dropped her jacket. She spotted it, crossed the room and reached out to grab it, only to have her fingers close on empty air. Henry was standing next to her, the jacket in his hands.

"If you think, for one second, that I would let you go into the lair of another vampire alone, _especially_ when that vampire has already struck out at me, then you're very mistaken," he said quietly. She was pretty sure that he was scolding her, even if the tone didn't translate as such, and she bristled.

"Don't scold me, Henry," Vicki snapped in response.

"I'm_trying_ to keep you safe," he retorted, voice rising. She couldn't help but notice that he'd moved closer to her as well. Oh, this wasn't good. Vicki opened her mouth to respond, and her hands twitched as she repressed the urge to either shove Henry away from her or to bring him closer, when she spotted Coreen standing up out of the corner of her eye. Both she and the way-too-close vampire turned to look, as one, at the other occupant of the room.

"Done. I think I got it all." Coreen looked a bit sheepish as she said it - the kind of embarrassment that came from walking in on something you weren't supposed to - and Vicki wondered what she thought that she was interrupting. "I'll be going now." Vicki opened her mouth, but Coreen spoke over her. "Yes, I'll go straight home."

Vicki hesitated, then nodded and Coreen took off, closing the door behind her. She turned back to face Henry, to find that the vampire was looking at her with one eyebrow raised. "So, where were we?" she asked, probably a bit more cheekily than she should have with Henry in the mood that he was in.

The vampire sighed. "If you're going to insist on speaking with Katrijn, then I will be coming along with you, if only to ensure that she has the same rules that I placed on Arianrhod."

"You think she'll be as obedient as Arianrhod?" Vicki asked as Henry finally relented and held up her jacket so that he could help her into it.

As she shrugged it up onto her shoulders and he let go, he replied, "She should be more. Unless she hasn't been taught so well yet. But if Arianrhod was taking her travelling, then she should be well aware of what she can expect from me."

"Maybe Arianrhod was counting on them never being separated and didn't bother."

"That's also a distinct possibility," Henry conceded after a moment of thought. Distinct possibility. Great. In her mind, that also translated to; there is a distinct possibility that I will be throwing Katrijn through a wall in order to make her recognise me as dominant. Please don't interrupt.

This wasn't going to be fun.

---

There was no sneaking up to the door today, as she had basically done with Mike when they'd visited Katrijn during the day. Vicki thought that this should seem odd to her - after all, they _knew_ the inhabitant was home and awake at night, and they'd been pretty sure that the house was basically empty during the daytime hours. It was the difference between working with Mike Celluci, who did everything cautiously and by the book, and Henry Fitzroy, who was cautious, but about as far away from "by the book" as it was possible to be.

However, Vicki knew that she'd much rather be with Henry when she was going to be up against a vampire, than Celluci. She trusted him against human culprits, but superhuman ones? Better to go with the superhuman partner.

"What're you thinking about?" Henry asked as they walked across the lawn and up the front steps of the house. His hand was firmly around her elbow, leading her, as she could see absolutely nothing on the dimly lit street.

She turned her head toward his voice, able to make out the faintest outline of his head and shoulders silhouetted against the illuminated light of a restaurant at the far end of the street. "Nothing important," she replied.

She could guess at the facial expression he was making - she didn't need to see it, though it was thrown into full relief when they reached the front door of the house and a sensor light triggered on. "If it's occupying your mind right now, I'm sure it can't be unimportant," Henry stated. It was an interesting observation, and she knew that he had a point.

"Okay, it's nothing I want to voice then," she countered. Henry nodded and banged on the door to the house.

"Now that, I can accept. Hello Katrijn." For the door had just opened, and there was one incredibly pale, frightened looking young woman standing in the open doorway. Her brown eyes were huge and staring, focused on Henry as though they couldn't quite believe what they were seeing. Vicki was fairly certain that the woman had no idea that Henry even existed and thus had definitely not been expecting him to show up on her doorstep.

She quickly got over her fear though - or at least her shock - and flashed her fangs at them, a low hiss playing from her lips. Henry hissed back and Vicki rolled her eyes. "Not here, please. Let's be civilized," she said flatly. Both turned to look at her and she let her face take on a bored, expectant look. Henry was the first to come back to his senses, or maybe it was easier for him to control himself. Either way, he reclaimed his human face a good two or three minutes before Katrijn did. Once the woman had control of herself, she stepped back to let them into the house.

"Who are you?" she asked in a quiet voice that held a heavy Dutch accent.

Vicki began to slip her Private Investigator's ID out of her pocket but Henry's hand stopped her and he gave a marginal shake of his head before addressing the frightened vampire, "My name is Henry Fitzroy, this is Vicki Nelson. You're in my territory and I have a few questions to ask you."

The woman gave a brief nod of her head. "I suppose you already know but for manner's sake, I am Katrijn Dench," she said in introduction. Vicki gave her a tight smile and nodded, turning her head slightly so that she could see Henry's reaction - there wasn't one.

"When is the last time you saw Ambrose Haward?" Henry asked, though the tone and delivery of the words made it sound like more of a demand. He wouldn't take silence for an answer on this, that was for sure.

"Ambrose?" the woman asked, the word coming out like a soft gasp. "You know of Ambrose? Perhaps then, would it be too much asking to see if you know Arianrhod also?" Apparently, her English grammar slipped when she began speaking too quickly. She saw Henry give a nod.

"We know her. We're in contact with her. We need to know when you last saw Ambrose," Henry repeated.

Katrijn hesitated, staring up at the ceiling as though trying to remember something. She looked back at Henry as she spoke, "Two nights ago, but I ran, because I-- I didn't want to see." She began shaking her head, looking distressed as she covered her face with her hands. "I _loved_ him, but I loved - _love­ _- her too and he can't accept it." Vicki could make out what she was saying but only because she'd lived in Toronto for so long and had worked in public service, thus making her accustomed to dealing with stressed people whose accents got heavier as they spoke. However, if she started babbling in Dutch, Vicki wasn't going to be able to help.

"You need to calm down and re-explain. With names, if you would," Henry said. His face was impassive, leading Vicki to believe that the distress the woman was giving off wasn't bothering him at all. Katrijn was staring at him with a shocked expression and she hissed something out in what Vicki assumed was Dutch, and that she also assumed was some sort of curse.

"That wouldn't be wise," Henry added lowly. Apparently, the vampire spoke the language. She wasn't surprised.

"Ambrose wants us to stay together," Katrijn said, her hands still partially covering her face. She slouched back against the nearest wall, letting it support her body. "We were friends before I met Arianrhod, and friends while I knew Arianrhod, and then he wanted a relationship. I thought 'Ria would say no, but she didn't, so Ambrose learned our secret.

"He was okay. Everything was fine, until the flight from Glasgow. He started acting strangely," she was shaking her head slowly, though Vicki noticed that her accent was lightening, making it easier to understand her. "When we landed in Toronto, we became lost looking for our hotel. Ambrose said he would find a map, and went into a store. 'Ria and me stayed outside, watching the people," she closed her eyes, as though in memory.

"Ambrose came out with something hidden in his jacket. I didn't know what it was, but 'Ria became suspicious. She made him walk in front of her when we went to the hotel. She didn't trust him. She refused to tell me why." Here, Vicki saw a tear trail down the woman's cheek.

"He wanted to kill her, but the _internet_," she spat the word, as though it was a curse, "Didn't have a way. So he found something close. He said he wanted to do it so that we could be together - forever, even though I told him it would be impossible. He didn't believe and I ran."

Vicki met Henry's eyes, noticing that he looked a bit troubled by the story. "And Coreen? How did you come by her?" he asked. His tone was gentler than it had been since they arrived.

"The young girl? I found her on the street. She was waiting for a bus, I-I think." Katrijn shook her head. "I took her to where the spell was being cast, but Ambrose and Arianrhod were gone. I didn't know what to do. I kept her here. She is missing," the last phrase was added as though it was an afterthought, and Vicki scrubbed a hand across her eyes. This had certainly been enlightening - she was surprised by how willing the woman was to talk.

"I think we have enough for now," Henry said, looking at Vicki for verification and smiling slightly when she nodded. "I will tell you the same as I told Arianrhod. You will not hunt in the downtown core, and you will make yourself available to us. That means that you do not leave this house, except to feed. Do you understand?"

Katrijn nodded slowly. "What of 'Ria?" she asked quietly. Everything the woman did seemed to be quiet.

"We will tell her where to find you," Henry stated. Katrijn gave a tight smile and mouthed the words 'thank you,' though no sound escaped her lips. "And we will get back to you when we have found Ambrose."

* * *

Chapter Eleven Preview

"How do you know she's telling the truth? She's a _vampire_, Vicki!"

"So is Henry. I trust him," she replied, dismissing his argument.

"Yeah, and I'll tell you there are some things I'd _love_ to say to him."


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Eleven_

"Why are vampiric customs so damn confusing?" Vicki asked, annoyed, once they'd left the house. "I mean, why can't you conduct yourselves like normal humans?"

Henry was giving her another of those eloquent expressions that told her without words that she was being naïve. Or slow. Something that he wouldn't voice anyway. "Because we _aren't_ normal humans, Vicki."

"Well, no. Okay, you're not," she admitted. "But you still look human - most of the time - and act human - again, most of the time - and obviously have the human range of emotions, unless Katrijn back there was expression something that there's another name for." She paused to catch her breath while Henry opened the passenger side door of the car for her to get in. She slid in and did up her seatbelt and sat in the dark, waiting for him to respond.

When he finally did, they had pulled out of the side street Katrijn's house was on and were driving east along College. "I don't think you fully understand what it means to be a vampire," he said quietly.

Vicki let out a frustrated noise and opened her mouth to respond, probably with something angry. Before she could though, Henry raised a hand to stop her. "It isn't you fault that you don't fully grasp it. It isn't an easy state of mind to take on, but places, just accept it when I tell you that as good as the human mask is, it's still just a mask."

Vicki fell silent and then expelled a long sigh. "Fine. I'll let it go. For now," she replied.

"Thank you," Henry said graciously. She nodded and they lapsed into a long, rather companionable silence while Vicki turned Katrijn's story over and over in her mind. There was something missing in it, she was sure. What though?

"Will you tell me what you're thinking about this time?" Henry asked, breaking the silence. His voice suddenly seemed to fill the whole car and Vicki resisted the urge to squirm in her seat. Too friendly… Too private… Too close. Damn vampire.

One of his hands was free of the steering wheel and playing through the loose ends of her hair where it trailed over her shoulder and she wondered what he thought she was thinking about. No doubt something very far from what was actually going through her mind, but then again, he was a man.

"That tale that Katrijn spun for us." The hand moved away and Vicki was sure that if she could see Henry's face, it would be wearing a disgruntled, maybe even frustrated expression.

"What about it?" he asked, both hands now back on the steering wheel in front of him, his face turned forward, his eyes on the road. She could tell that he hadn't appreciated her keeping the conversation focused on work, but they had a job that they had to do.

"There are holes in it," she elaborated. They passed under a streetlight and she saw that Henry was wearing a thoughtful expression.

"What kind of holes?" he asked. His tone was purely curious, leaving her unable to tell if he had spotted the same holes that she had or not. She suspected not - Henry had been too busy snarling at the young woman to catch the flaws that Vicki had spotted.

"Well, Ambrose doesn't have a Dutch accent for one thing. I mean, we have no idea how long Arianrhod and Katrijn have known one another, but if Katrijn and Ambrose have known each other longer, doesn't have tell you that they should at least speak the same language?"

"She speaks English," Henry pointed out. "What if Arianrhod and Katrijn met six months ago, and Ambrose and Katrijn have known one another for a year? He could have been living in the Netherlands for any reason. Or maybe they were friends online. I think you're looking for discrepancies where there aren't any."

"Yeah?" she demanded on the tail end of his sentence. "How come there was no place in her story to account for Jane Deer's missing cell phone then?"

Henry fell into silence after this, his only other words to her that evening a quick 'good night' when he dropped her off at her apartment.

---

It was with a decidedly strange feeling in her gut that Katrijn answered the door for the second time that night. It was getting quite close to dawn and she knew that she should really be settling down in a safe, dark place to await her looming death but at the same time, she couldn't _not_ answer the door. It would be rude and she was fairly certain that no one would have reason for coming here if they didn't need her for something. Who could it be though? Who would be calling at this hour?

With one hand resting just above the deadbolt, not opening it in case she really didn't want to deal with whoever was on the other side, Katrijn peered through a gap in the curtain that hung over the window centred in the door. Her eyes widened in shock as they traced over the man on the porch.

"What are you doing here, Ambrose?" she asked as she opened the door, trying to plant herself in the doorway so that he couldn't get by, but finding herself pushed off to one side when he refused to take the silent hint. Following him with her eyes as he moved past her and then turning when he moved from her peripheral vision, Katrijn closed the door quietly and slipped the lock closed again.

"You were talking to them," he sounded tortured and she couldn't stop herself from stepping forward with one hand extended in a show of comfort. She knew she shouldn't be comforting him. His presence alone was causing the barely controllable creature that floated just beneath the surface of her emotions to stir, telling her to lash out at him. He'd separated her from Arianrhod. He'd put her in danger. He was only a liability.

"Talking to who, Ambrose?" she asked carefully, trying to squish down the vampire and retain her humanity. It wasn't easy. She didn't know how. She only knew the basics of what Arianrhod had taught her. She saw Ambrose skip backward as her pale eyes briefly flickered to black.

"The PI and the other vampire," Ambrose said in a scowl. "We're together now, Kati. 'Ria isn't there to stand between us anymore. I told you it would all work out, and it has." Katrijn stood there shaking her head and she saw Ambrose frown. "Don't tell me you're backing down now. It's too late, Katrijn!" there was a challenge in the man's tone and Katrijn couldn't stop the vampire from bursting through her civilian mask.

"Don't threaten me!" she spat through elongated fangs. Ambrose stumbled backward a step. "'Ria's still looking for me. You told me that the spell would only make her willing to let me go after she was done teaching me, so that we could be together. You never mentioned_this_!"

She shook her head and forced her civilian mask back on and the vampire back down beneath the layers of humanity. She couldn't lose control now. "You lied to me," she whispered.

Ambrose scoffed. "I didn't _lie_ to you. I just bent the truth a little. You don't need her, Kati―"

"You have no right to call me that!" Katrijn shrieked, not caring that it was hours before dawn and that her voice was likely to carry out of the house and through the silent street. Ambrose hadn't always been this way. He'd never been this way when they'd first met. Now though, now he was acting crazy. Almost insane, and she wasn't sure how to deal with it. She wasn't sure how to deal with it at all.

"Can't you see that she's lying to you? She's _changed_ you, Kati. You don't _need_ her. It's all just some ploy so that she can keep us apart, can't you see that?" Ambrose continued as though Katrijn hadn't interrupted. She shook her head.

"You need to go, Ambrose. You need to go now. It's almost dawn and… and you can't be here,' she whispered in response. Perhaps when she woke at sunset she would be able to deal with this. Or maybe, Arianrhod would return to her tonight and be able to guide her. She knew that the elder vampire would be able to get rid of Ambrose without a problem. At least, she thought she would.

Her mind suddenly remembered the night that Ambrose had attacked Arianrhod. The scent of the candle wax as he melted the poppet enough to carve it, the crude wax representation of the woman that he had proudly shown to her. The dry scent of the herbs that he'd burnt outside of the building to keep 'Ria inside while he constructed the salt circle around her body.

The vials of blood that he'd taken during the day to ensure that she would be too weak to move to attack him.

He hadn't been stupid when he'd been planning it. He hadn't let Katrijn in on most of it until the ritual was almost over. By then, to do anything else would probably have killed Arianrhod altogether. She didn't know. She didn't know enough about magic _to_ know.

So she'd gone along with it. Now though, now she knew that 'Ria was okay. She knew that Ambrose had nothing to hold over her head anymore. She could… She could kill him. If she disposed of him, then she would never have to worry about him coming after her again. She'd never have to worry about him trying to get rid of Arianrhod again. She'd never have to be separated from the strong, older vampire again.

She felt her fangs elongating at the thoughts and raised her eyes from where they were focused on the floor to look up at Ambrose. The spiky scent of fear filled the room and when Katrijn met the man's eyes, she faltered. She couldn't kill him. She knew that she had the means. She knew that she could commit the act almost before he even realised what was happening. She knew most of all, however, that she couldn't act so violently against Ambrose. Above all else, she loved him and remembered that.

"Go," she whispered. The man stared at her. "Leave!" she ordered, human mask slipping again, the order accompanied by a strong wave of command. She didn't want him here anymore. She didn't want anymore of his scent to permeate the house. She didn't think she would be able to stand it and she definitely knew that Arianrhod would have something to say about it when she came. If she came.

The door slammed behind Ambrose as he left the house, leaving with it a feeling settling in her gut. She wasn't sure what the feeling was but she knew that she was going to regret something. What it was, she wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps she shouldn't have used such force to expel Ambrose from her sanctuary. Her mind reflected on the thought as she laid herself down in the small, contained room in the basement, and continued to buzz around her thoughts until the coming dawn stole both them and her life.

---

That morning over coffee and supposedly fresh muffins, Vicki told Mike the story that Katrijn had told to her and Henry the night previous. The detective frowned at the end of it and tapped his foot on the floor beneath his desk, the expression on his face telling her that he was trying to feign contemplation. Knowing him far better than that though, Vicki was able to see the expression of disbelief beneath the thoughtful mask.

"What?" she asked, tone aggressive. She didn't bother to try and control her voice though. If Mike wasn't going to believe her, then she needed a damn good reason why.

"How do you know she's telling the truth?" he asked. There had been a moment of hesitation before he asked it and there was a tone of hesitation after it before he followed the question with, "She's a _vampire_, Vicki!"

Vicki was more than positive that Celluci had known that this wasn't the right thing to say, even as he had said it. His hesitation before he had uttered the phrase told her that clearly enough. Instead of rising to anger over it though - and she would have _loved_ to get into a screaming match with him to let off some steam - she said plainly, "So is Henry. I trust him," in a way that dismissed the argument as irrelevant.

"Yeah, and I'll tell you there are some things I'd _love_ to say to him," Mike growled out. Vicki ignored the comment and instead lifted one leg so that she could push herself into a half sitting position on the corner of Mike's desk. "Maturing?" he asked teasingly when she didn't rise to the bait a second time.

"No. There're two vampires in Toronto that I'm trying to get rid of before Henry does his nut and kills them himself," Vicki replied. "I have no doubt that it's going to happen at some point if Arianrhod and Katrijn don't leave soon. However, if Ambrose attacked Arianrhod, then he's probably a threat to vampires."

"I'm a cop, Vicki. Not a vampire executioner. You're a PI, not a vampire executioner. Since Haward threatens the one person in this city that I _know_ can take care of himself and would _rather_ take care of himself, I can't see why I want to help you find Ambrose Haward."

"Except that he killed the most recent body to come into your morgue, and you happen to have been assigned to that case," Vicki reminded him. Mike tensed, then let out a long breath of air and Vicki grinned, knowing that she had him.

"If he's some sort of vampire daylight guardian sorcerer thing, are you sure that a jail can hold him?" Mike asked blandly.

Vicki rolled her eyes. "Just tell the prison that he's not allowed to have salt. I'm going home and to bed now." And she turned and left the office, ignoring Celluci when his brain finally caught up to what she'd said and he shouted 'What do you mean, no salt!? And where am I supposed to find him!?' after her.

* * *

Chapter Twelve Preview

"I'd rather see him dead so that he can't tell others about that spell," Henry growled. She saw him eye her punching bag and narrowed her eyes.

"Don't even think about it. I don't want to buy a new one."

"I wouldn't break it."

"And I'm Queen Mary." Henry's eyebrow shot up.

* * *

Oh, wow. Delay on the upload of this one. Enjoy--- 


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Twelve_

'_Leave me to do her grunt work. Right_,' Celluci thought irritably to himself. Somewhere deep within him, he was sure that he was actually quite happy that Vicki was letting him do his job instead of trying to take it over from outside of the force and not letting him in on all of the details that she found. Unfortunately, he also realised that once she had slept, she was very likely to be back and trying to lead him around - blindly - by the nose.

"We have a new case, have you seen the folder?" Kate asked, coming up behind him. Mike nodded, the motion little more than a shallow jerk of his head. "So you already know that Vicki was the last one she talked to before she died?"

Mike scrubbed a hand across his face. "Yes."

"And you've spoken to her?"

"Yes."

Kate stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, looking impatient. It took Mike a few moments to realise that she was expecting him to tell her what Vicki had said. It took him another moment after that to remember that she was working the case with him. Not Vicki. Why couldn't he keep these things straight in his head? Probably because he was working with Vicki so often lately that it didn't feel at all as though they weren't both still homicide detectives.

"Vicki had called Miss Deer to follow up on something for one of her clients," Mike elaborated after a moment. There was an odd twist to Kate's mouth that Mike couldn't quite decipher. He wasn't sure that he wanted to decipher it for that matter, though he was sure that not knowing exactly what it was that she was thinking now was going to come back to bite him later.

"You're sure that's it? That's all you know?" Kate finally asked. The twist to her mouth didn't go away. It really wasn't a good sign. "Did Vicki―" there was something in the way his partner said Vicki's name that he didn't like "―tell you what she was following up?" He suspected that Kate was just tired of Vicki being involved in all of their cases. He knew that _he_ was tired of her being involved in all of their cases.

"Vaguely. But!" he held up a hand to halt Kate's angry expression as she opened her mouth to snap something he was sure he didn't want to hear. He really needed to stop working with women. It was too difficult to get around their mood swings. "I have a name we can go after."

Kate's expression turned to one of interest and Mike felt a wave of relief wash over him. "What's the name? Have you run it?"

Mike beckoned her over and pulled Ambrose Haward's information up onto the screen. At least Vicki's grunt work was legitimate work for him this time, even if all of the details surrounding the case itself - or at least, Vicki's section of the case - weren't exactly something that would hold up in a courtroom. Somehow, he didn't think a jury would be able to deal with a scorned human lover using black magic to trap his vampiric love rival in her own body for two days without something happening to _him_. Where would he get evidence to prove that anyway?

---

"This is all taking too long," Henry growled from his place by the far wall in her office. He was standing and staring out at the street below, just as he always seemed to do when he was angry, or annoyed, or deep in thought… Or anything really. She thought it must be a vampire thing - she couldn't see any joy in staring out of a window at the people walking by below. Then again, as she couldn't actually _see_ the people walking by below - even if the office was basically on street level - she supposed it was understandable that she didn't find the same thrill in the activity. Still, she wished that Henry would at least look at her when they were having a conversation.

"Well he's sort of disappeared, Henry. It's not like we can move much faster than we are," Vicki replied from where she was sitting atop her desk. He made a motion as though he were going to spin around but instead his hands clenched more tightly together behind his back and he continued to stare out of the window.

She wished that she could see his face. As it was though, she could barely see the outline of his profile against the wall; everything else was cast into shadowed relief that would probably be easier to see through if she had more lights on. Being courteous to Henry though, she had decided against having as many on as she needed to see properly. She was regretting it.

"Then let _me_ go after him," the man scowled. Vicki heard a change in Henry's voice and didn't need to see his face to know that his human mask had fallen.

"It's a job for the police now. We should just concern ourselves with getting Arianrhod and Katrijn to leave the city and go back to… wherever they're from," Vicki replied.

"The police won't _kill_ him. I'd rather see him dead so that he can't tell others about that spell," the vampire growled. He spun and she saw him eye her punching bag. She narrowed her eyes.

"Don't even think about it. I don't want to buy a new one," she snapped out quickly, not wanting to see the damage that an angry vampire could do to the innocently hanging bag. She stepped between him and the bag as he made a step forward. Normally, she'd have no problem with him attacking the bag - it would be better than going off and tracking down Ambrose Haward and killing him. But normally, she'd be able to trust that he wouldn't completely destroy the bag. She didn't think that he could guarantee that right now.

"I wouldn't break it," Henry countered, sounding annoyed. Vicki scoffed - he hadn't even gained enough of his control back to re-construct his civilian mask.

"And I'm Queen Mary," she retorted. Henry's eyebrow shot up just as she realised that the name that she had picked probably wasn't the best one she could have chosen. As she was trying to scrape up something to say that would save her from whatever Henry's reaction was, the man started laughing, his civilian mask suddenly back in place.

"No. No, you're most definitely not," he said through his laughter. When he showed no signs of stopping, Vicki rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.

"Right. Well, once you've decided to rejoin the land of the serious, we have a visitor."

---

"I want to see my child, Ms Nelson. I won't accept you keeping me away from her for much longer and you won't appreciate it when she loses control of her Hunger and begins stalking the streets," the woman's eyes flickered to Henry. "Nor will you."

"You will pay for her transgressions against me," Henry snapped. Vicki moved between them, blocking their sight of one another. It probably wasn't the best idea but she really didn't want a vampire brawl in her office. Not only that, but she wasn't quite certain who was stronger between Henry and Arianrhod and she really didn't want to find out.

Vicki smoothed her hand across her face and then adjusted her glasses. "Yeah, we'll show you where she's staying. In exchange though, you and her are going to help us track down Ambrose." Vicki swore that the woman had flashed fangs at her for this comment but in the next moment it could have easily been a trick of the light, or just her poor eyesight, because Arianrhod was already up and headed toward the door. She looked toward Henry to find that he looked a bit uncomfortable.

"What's up?" she asked once the office door had closed behind the other woman. She reached across Henry to grab her jacket, and the vampire slowly passed it to her.

"She's taking this all too well. And we still don't know how Katrijn ties into everything. She had to have been in on it, but Arianrhod's not even putting it forth as a possibility," he said contemplatively. It took Vicki a fair bit of self control to restrain from pointing out that Arianrhod very likely didn't think that Katrijn could be a threat. Vicki had seen the way that Katrijn had reacted when they told her they knew where Arianrhod was. She didn't think that the blonde was a threat to the older vampire either. So, instead of saying anything, she gave Henry a thoughtful look, twisting her mouth from side to side.

"What?" Henry prompted.

Vicki shook her head. "Nothing. Let's just show Ms Geddes where she can find Katrijn." Still looking at her as though he was expecting her response to his comment, Henry let her precede him out of the door.

---

"You have any luck tracking down Haward yet?" Mike asked as soon as she answered her ringing cell phone. Vicki rolled her eyes and mouthed 'Mike' to Henry, who was looking at her expectantly. The vampire made a motion with his hand and rolled his eyes. Apparently, he was about as thrilled at being bothered right now as she was.

"Though that was your job, Celluci," Vicki commented offhandedly. Mike let out an exasperated noise.

"He's_your_ client," he reminded her. "Don't you have a contact or something?"

"Yeah, but it's Jane Deer's cell phone number and now that she's dead, I suspect that it will be too," Vicki replied. "Unless you want to call the phone company and demand that they keep the number active. Maybe Haward will have been stupid enough to keep the phone on him after he killed her."

"We still have no proof that it _was _Ambrose Haward that killed her," Mike reminded her. There was something in his tone of voice that she wasn't too fond of.

"Oh please, Mike. It couldn't be anyone else," she growled.

"What about one of those vampires?"

"And what would they gain from having killed her?" Vicki asked, wondering why Mike would rather grasp at a vampire for his perpetrator than a living, breathing, normal human being.

"A meal?" Mike offered. "They already knew she existed."

"That's weak, Mike. It was Ambrose Haward. There's no point in arguing over it. And since I know that you don't want to see him dead before he goes to trial, I'm not going to sic the vampires on him, okay?"

Mike snorted and beside her, so did Henry. "Fine. But if you get _any_ hint of where in this damn city he is…"

"I'll call you," Vicki promised and then hung up the phone.

"Giving you a hard time again?" Henry asked. He wasn't facing her but was instead looking forward out of the windshield of the car, staring up at the front walk of the house on Henry St. that Katrijn had claimed as her own. She had no idea what was going through his head but she knew that he had been staring in that direction since Arianrhod had left the car and entered the building. Since she was pretty sure that it was some sort of vampire thing that she would barely understand, she had chosen not to ask. That didn't mean that she wasn't curious though.

"Won't believe she was killed by our scorned lover," Vicki replied, trying to focus her eyes on whatever Henry was looking at but unable to make anything out that was outside of the car. "What're you looking at?"

"Nothing. I was trying to figure out what was going on inside the house. I suspect Arianrhod is allowing Katrijn to feed." Vicki started and spun her head quickly around so that she could look at Henry - his voice had been too close to her ear for him to be looking at the house anymore. Her eyes widened when she found them nearly nose to nose. An inch or two more and… '_You're working!_' Vicki scolded herself.

Still, she couldn't move away, and she didn't think that it had anything to do with any sort of vampire compulsion. Henry the man was apparently quite compelling enough to draw her attention. This close up, she could almost see his face as something more detailed than a pale oval too.

One of Henry's fingers came up to push her glasses up onto her nose, and the action was enough to jerk her back to herself. "Right. Working. Okay, Ambrose Haward. Where are we going to find him?" By the time she'd finished speaking, Henry had drawn back into his seat and was staring back up at the house again.

"I would suggest we persuade Katrijn to lead us to him. If anyone is going to be able to find him, it's her," he replied. There was a stiffness to his tone that she had no doubt was a reflection on her turning her attention back onto work when it was clear that his had been on anything but. She wasn't blind - well, figuratively speaking - she just didn't think that now was the appropriate time for flirting. Yeah. That was it.

"Why her?" Vicki asked.

"She has the closest relationship to him. I'm sure that Arianrhod would be able to find him as well, but it would very likely take her longer, and we want this wrapped up as quickly as possible," he responded. Something in the way he said it made her wonder if he would be able to find _her_ anywhere in the city because of their relationship. Then again, as she was quite certain that Ambrose and Katrijn were far more intimate than she and Henry, she didn't think that she had to worry about it.

Vicki gave her head a mental shake. Why was she so side-tracked tonight?

The front door of the house they were parked in front of opened in a spill of light that Vicki could just barely make out a couple of silhouettes in, and she felt a wave of relief at the more than welcome distraction.

"Okay, so. Here comes our vampire hunting dog. Think she'll be up to it?"

Henry let out a stifled snort of laughter in response.

* * *

Sorry, no preview today guys. I have no idea what's coming next... 


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Thirteen_

Henry was standing back from the sidewalk, leaning against his car with his arms folded across his chest. He was staring straight forward, carefully watching Arianrhod and Katrijn where they stood on the sidewalk in front of the house. Vicki, though watching the two female vampires as intently as Henry was, couldn't help the repeated glances back toward him that she made. There was a weird energy in the air, and she had no idea why she could feel it. Was this what happened when there were too many vampires in one place at once?

Arianrhod was saying something in a low tone to Katrijn and making gestures with her hands. Vicki suspected that she was teaching her something - Henry had implied as much when he'd made his excuse for standing back, away from the two. He'd said something about not wanting to accidentally seem to get in the way of Arianrhod's relationship with Katrijn. Common sense told her that this had to be what it was that he was referring to.

Suddenly, Arianrhod looked up toward Henry and beckoned him toward them. He glanced toward Vicki and she tilted her head to one side, frowning at him, until he made his way over o the other two vampires, gesturing for her to join them as he moved.

"What have you found?" Henry asked. Arianrhod looked at Katrijn and made a motion with her hand, telling her to explain. Attention turned onto her, the blonde shuffled nervously.

"Ambrose came to see me, just before dawn," she said quietly. Vicki's mouth twisted into a frown. Why hadn't they been told this sooner? "He wanted me to come with him."

Henry made a motion at the edge of her (rather limited) peripheral vision that Vicki barely caught as she turned her head so that she could better bring him into focus, and the next moment, she had been pushed to the side by someone's hand - she wasn't sure whose - and was sitting in pile of snow. Above her, Arianrhod had placed herself between Henry and Katrijn and the two older vampires were hissing at each other. The PI wasn't quite sure what was going on, and from what she could see of Katrijn, the woman just looked scared.

"Hello? Middle of a public street here. Growl at each other when we get in the car," Vicki snapped, not at all amused by the way the snow had soaked into the seat of her pants. When she found out who had pushed her, they were going to pay. Since she suspected that it had been Henry, she was going to have fun making him pay.

The two vampires stared at each other for another long moment before, as one, their monster faces slipped away to be replaced with the faux humanity that they hid behind. "Thank you," Vicki said, both to the ease with which they had complied, and to the hand that Henry extended toward her to help her up off of the ground and, more importantly, out of the snow.

Henry opened his mouth as though to speak, then hesitated and shut it again as he nodded and gestured toward the car. "So, you have an idea of where he is then?" he asked, looking from Arianrhod to Katrijn.

Katrijn frowned, then nodded slowly. "An idea, yes. But it may be incorrect, I mean…" she passed beneath a streetlight as she made her way to the car and Vicki saw that her eyes were wild, the whites in them almost flashing with her motions. "He didn't tell me where he was going. I made him leave. I didn't want him there. Not after… not after…" she faltered and didn't appear to be able to finish her sentence - she was slowly shaking her head back and forth, eyes closed, the textbook picture of someone in denial.

"Shh…" Arianrhod murmured, moving up behind the taller woman and wrapping her arms around her. There was a dangerous look in her eye as she looked at Henry that dared him to say something about the weakness that Katrijn was showing. Looking at Henry, Vicki decided that it was unnecessary. The man looked decidedly unsettled by what he was seeing. Almost as though he were thrown off balance by the whole situation.

"So you have an idea, but you're really not sure," Vicki said slowly. She couldn't control the sardonic tone that the phrase came out in. It was a useless way to communicate information and it guaranteed that Mike wouldn't be willing to follow the lead to wherever Katrijn tried to take them. Not if there wasn't a good chance that Haward _would_ be there.

Katrijn was nodding quickly. Arianrhod looked as though she was going to launch herself at the next person that tried to question her child. Henry looked… She thought Henry looked amused, but a second glance made her unsure. And as for Vicki herself, well, Vicki wanted to go home and go to bed, but something in her gut was telling her that the murder of Jane Deer was only the start of whatever Ambrose Haward wanted to do. For some reason, she thought that the seemingly isolated incident was going to escalate into something greater. She really wished that the feeling would go away.

---

"There's no reason for him to have left the campus. Or at least the area around it," Katrijn said in her heavy accent. She was nervous again - all three vampires were, and it was causing Vicki to be on edge as well. Something about all of that potential power being locked up in one car was making her tense, and she could see that Henry was visibly tense as well, which meant that he was very uptight indeed. Then again, Arianrhod was sitting right behind him, and though she wasn't doing anything that Vicki could see, the PI suspected that she didn't really have to.

"You'd think that someone would have discovered him by now," Vicki replied. All three vampires were scanning the sidewalks as they drove up and down the criss-cross of roads that made up the U of T campus, but Vicki hadn't bothered. She couldn't see out there anyway, so she was making conversation instead. She thought that it was probably the easiest way of alleviating the tension that was sitting heavily in the car. So far, it wasn't working.

"Why?" Katrijn asked. "He's a sorcerer. He can hide himself." Vicki supposed that she had a point.

"Why would you get involved with a sorcerer then? And a dangerous one at that?" Henry made a noise after the question, as thoughhe'd found it offensive - or unnecessary - but since Katrijn was responding, Vicki didn't think it had been too personal. Besides that, she felt that she had a right to know as much about her client - or, former client - as was possible. However, the question that Katrijn snapped out at her wasn't the response that Vicki had expected.

"Why are you involved with a vampire?"

'_Touché,'_ Vicki thought to herself, even though she and Henry weren't _exactly_ involved. How did she go about responding to that without hurting the feelings of the vampire in the seat next to her though?

"It's different," Henry said, overriding anything that Vicki was going to say. "You became involved with a vampire and are now one yourself. You should realise that." He was looking at Katrijn in his rear view mirror, one dark eyebrow raised.

Katrijn made a soft noise but didn't respond for a long moment until she spied something outside of the car window. "That's him," she said in a low tone. Vicki felt something ripple through the car, heard air rushing in her ears and behind it, a woman's voice saying something. A long moment later, the air rushing in her ears stopped and she was able to spin around in her chair to find that the car was empty.

"Nice," she growled to the empty vehicle. "Real nice. Leave the girl with night blindness to stumble around outside, trying to find you. Henry you're _so_ going to hear about this," she growled as she fumbled in her purse for her cell phone so that she could call Mike. He picked up on the first ring.

"Found him," she said before he could even finish stating his name. "I'm staring at Varsity Stadium."

"You're one hundred percent sure that he's there?" Mike asked. She could hear his pen scratching information down on a piece of paper as he spoke. At least he as taking her seriously, no matter how much doubt there was in his voice.

"Almost one hundred percent. I haven't actually seen him, but I'm sure that they've caught him by now," she replied, feeling around the dash with one hand, trying to find the switch that would turn on the interior lights. She was sure that it hadn't seemed dark to the vampires, but it was dark to her. Very dark.

"They?_Vicki!_" Mike exclaimed, rather emphatically. "Are you telling me that you let a bunch of vampires after him instead of going yourself?"

"Hey, hey! They _left_ me here, Mike," she growled. "And they'll be hearing about it. Or at least, one of them will. Until then, are you going to get down here or not?" she demanded, suddenly remembering what the point of their conversation had been.

"Yeah, I'm on my way. Sit tight. Behind Varsity Stadium, right? That's right near the first scene…" Even as he hung up, it sounded as though Mike was putting the situation together in his head.

Vicki let out a long breath and let her head fall back against the head rest of the seat. She knew that she should really be getting up to stumble around the campus and try to figure out where the vampires had run off to, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to actually sit up and open the door. Or take off her seatbelt for that matter. Why hadn't she taken off her seatbelt yet?

And why was she so tired? There was no reason for her to be so exhausted. It was as though the seconds racing past were dragging with them her energy. It was actually a very strange feeling, and one that she couldn't quite push out of her head even though it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Then again, how could she label it ridiculous when it seemed that she had been thrown into an ocean of supernatural activity that she couldn't quite find her way out of?

Vicki grimaced and scratched idly at one of her wrists when it began to itch. Great. Now the thoughts were making her skin crawl. She needed to think about something else. For that matter, she was pretty sure that she needed a new job. Or she needed to stop accepting all of these paranormal cases. That might work.

It was a shame that she was fairly certain most of the people who wanted her to solve cases concerning the supernatural wouldn't give up easily. Neither, for that matter, would the itch on her wrists. Vicki growled and pulled back the sleeves of her jacket to give her better access to the skin hidden beneath and furrowed her brow at the eruption of light that was revealed when the fabric had been pulled back.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit," Vicki muttered. She couldn't make out the shape of the glowing but she was well aware that there was only one place that it could possibly be coming from. She had no idea what could have happened to set the demon brands glowing, but she was quite certain that whatever it was, it wasn't a good sign.

The brands had glowed when they'd removed the binding spell from Arianrhod. That meant that what was causing them to glow now was probably another spell. But what kind of spell was it, and who was doing the casting? Since she assumed it was Haward doing the casting, who was the spell being cast on?

Vicki rubbed at her wrists as she fumbled for the latch and opened the car door. Pushing her glasses back up her nose when they slipped down, Vicki swirled her head back and forth, peering through the layers of darkness and trying to make out where Henry could have taken off to. In the distance she could hear sirens. Good. That meant Mike would be here soon.

She knew that she should probably wait by the car until Mike arrived, not only because he would want to know exactly what was going on, but also because she was more likely to wander in the wrong direction or get hit by a car than she was to actually find Henry. Why weren't there more streetlights here? For that matter, why couldn't the lights at Varsity Stadium be switched on?

She paused, mid-thought. Varsity Stadium had a large field that had to be empty right now. They were right near it, and her marks were glowing. Maybe Haward was taking advantage of the large open space to cast his next spell. The vampires could easily have gone up and over the iron fence - she assumed - which meant that she was going to have to make her way up to Bloor and around to the main entrance of the building. Hopefully, it wouldn't be locked. If it was, she was going to have to wait for Mike, and something told her that she didn't have that kind of time to waste.

Taking a deep breath, Vicki looked around once more. They had been driving North, which made Bloor Street in the direction that the nose of the car was pointing. That was good. Pushing her glasses up her nose once more, Vicki took off along the sidewalk, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

Had her peripheral vision been a little better, she would have noticed that her still glowing demon marks had caught the attention of a man standing just inside the enclosed field of the stadium that bordered the sidewalk to her right.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen Preview 

If he could just extinguish one of the candles, the spell would be broken and he'd be able to escape. Or kill Haward. He didn't really have a preference, though he supposed he might once the spell was actually broken and he could think straight.

"Can you reach it?" Arianrhod's voice was even soft to his enhanced hearing. Could he reach it? Couldn't she tell that he couldn't?


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Fourteen_

Henry's eyes blazed as he watched the sorcerer from where he stood trapped. He was one of the focus points of a triangle and he wasn't happy to be there. At all. This was the last thing that he had expected when he'd run from the car, following Arianrhod and Katrijn. _'And_,' he noted, looked at the other two vampires, _'It was the last thing that they expected as well.'_ For the two female vampires were standing frozen in the two other points of the triangle.

They looked like statues, almost, save for their faces which like his, were unfrozen and thus free to make any expression they wished. To say anything they wished. Not that there was a lot of talking going on. In fact, except for the occasional pleading word from Katrijn (for which Arianrhod would send her a scathing glare each time) their triangle was silent.

So silent, that Henry could hear the breathing of the person walking by on the sidewalk. Could hear their heartbeat… Recognised it. _'Vicki,' _he thought to himself, annoyed. She should have stayed in the car, like he'd intended when he'd taken off without warning. His eyes narrowed as they took in the light that seemed to surround Vicki's wrists. Of course she hadn't stayed put - she knew that there was something going on.

Henry shook his head and forced himself to look at the area that surrounded him. He couldn't pay attention to Ambrose and Vicki now. Not when he knew that there was nothing that he could do about the scrutiny that Ambrose was paying her, even as dearly as he wanted to. Still, he couldn't keep himself from snarling and baring his fangs once Ambrose had turned away from his focus of the sidewalk and back to the circle that he'd constructed.

"Don't worry, Fitzroy. I'm not going to hurt your girlfriend unless she interferes," he leered. As Henry was quite sure that Vicki was going to try to interfere with whatever it was that the man was trying to do, this didn't comfort him. Instead, he snapped his fangs once at the man and then forced back his vampire so that he was able to present his human mask.

"Ambrose, love, please. Why are you doing this?" Katrijn asked softly. Ambrose approached the woman and walked in a circle around her, one of his hands trailing across her torso as he moved. Henry watched with a sort of detached interest for a long moment and then, certain that Ambrose was occupied, began flickering his eyes at the ground around him.

There had to be a way out of this situation and hopefully it would be one that he would find before he discovered exactly what it was that Ambrose wanted from them. Henry already suspected that whatever it was, it was the product of the mind of a madman. Having finally met Ambrose Haward for the first time, he couldn't understand why Arianrhod had allowed the man to travel around with her while she was trying to train her child. He knew that someone like Haward wouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of any child that he ever made.

It was clear to him - perhaps only because he knew of Ambrose's recent magical activities - that the man hated vampires. He didn't know why - indeed, he didn't think that even Ambrose knew why - but there was a level of hatred there that had appeared to seep right into the man's skin. Henry detected it in every glance toward him that the man made. It was in the very set of his eyes.

He couldn't figure out how Arianrhod had survived as a child of the night for so long. She was a fool.

Ambrose was still circling Katrijn and Katrijn was still speaking her low pleas, so Henry returned his attention to the circle that had been constructed around them. It was the same setup as the first spell that Ambrose had cast, and the same setup as the spell that Coreen had cast in his apartment. A salt circle and five candles to mark the points of the pentagram that the circle contained. Break the circle, break the spell. It should have been so easy, but it wasn't.

It wasn't easy because he couldn't move anything but his eyes. He couldn't bend to blow out a candle, couldn't shuffle his foot to blur the line of salt. Couldn't even extend a hand across the line that the salt marked to see if he could shatter the contained magic that way. He was stuck, unless a wind happened to gust along and extinguish one of the candles - and he wasn't even sure if that would do the trick without there being intent behind the motion.

There was a reason that Henry Fitzroy loathed black magic.

He looked upward as Ambrose came toward him and instinctively found himself baring his fangs at the man. Haward snorted and shook his head.

"A little territorial, are you?" he asked, putting one hand flat on Henry's chest as though just to prove that he could without the vampire being able to react. "No matter. Soon this city will be free of supernatural predators roaming the streets and I will be free to move onto the next city. And then the next, and then the next."

"Is that what this is about?" Henry growled. The man was mad. "You hate vampires and want to get rid of them? Why be friends with Katrijn then?" He already suspected why but didn't want to be the one to say it. Beside him in the dark, Arianrhod, sounding much like an angry cat, let out a low hiss of warning.

"I was friends with her _before_ she became a vampire, as I'm sure you have been told," Ambrose drawled. "Before she was_infected_," he spat the word, letting Henry know exactly what the man thought of vampires and the magic that allowed them immortality, in case he hadn't already figured it out. "I was going to have her help me. She would have had great potential you know.

"But then!" And here, he spun, the back of his unfastened winter jacket flinging out behind him in a dramatic motion as he did so, and moved over toward Arianrhod. "She met you." A flat tone now. Like an actor reciting a monologue, he knew how to play his voice well to suit the story. It was a shame that his audience wasn't appreciating the effort that was being put in.

"And she's better off with me than she ever would have been with you," Arianrhod spat. Henry cringed. Something in him didn't want to anger Ambrose. It was probably the part of him that was well aware that even as he heard police sirens approaching, Vicki was getting that much closer as well. Maybe the police would arrive before Vicki and stop her from entering the stadium. It was a stretch, but it was really the only hope that he had.

"I disagree," Ambrose purred out. He had one of his fingers under Arianrhod's chin and was tilting her face upward, as though trying to see her better. Henry heard her snarl and snap her fangs but his eyes were on the ground again. He needed to reach that candle. If he could extinguish it, the spell would be broken and he would be able to escape. Or kill Haward. He didn't really have a preference, though he supposed that he might once the spell was broken and he could think straight. Any thoughts beyond those of escape and the lingering worry for Vicki were going to have to wait.

"Can you reach it?" Arianrhod's voice was soft even to his enhanced hearing. Haward had turned his attention back onto Katrijn. It was a foolish mistake for him, turning his back on the two older vampires but it was a good thing for him. Not that he could actually reach that candle anyway. Couldn't she tell that he couldn't? Henry gave a marginal shake of his head and he heard Arianrhod sigh in response.

Sirens were whirring close by. From the corner of his eye, he saw light. The next moment, as though the police were moving at vampiric speed, he heard the (surprisingly) welcome sound of Detective Celluci's voice shout, "Police!"

His senses felt around for Vicki's heartbeat and he found it, close to the detective's, though moving slightly behind him. He wished he could convince himself to believe that that was more for her protection than just her walking more slowly because she couldn't see where she was placing her feet.

Ambrose hadn't stopped moving, despite the flashlight beams that caught him in a spotlight where he stood in the middle of the circle. His movements were more methodical now, though they appeared hurried, as though he thought that he could complete his spell before the police could cross the field and reach him. Henry didn't think it possible. Not unless Ambrose had other surprises setup across the field for an interruption like this one. But he couldn't have planned for something like this, could he? Was he sane enough to acknowledge that people would be standing in his way?

"Police! Stop where you are!" Celluci shouted again. His partner echoed it and Ambrose finally spun to look at them.

"Who are you?" he shouted. His voice broke as he said it and Henry felt some of the tension seep from him. Haward was beginning to sound mad. Of course, it was a sign that could go either way, good or bad. It all depended on Haward and how he reacted to his sudden desperation. He had realised that the police were going to stop him.

"Detective Michael Celluci," the man shouted. He was holding up his badge. Ambrose glanced at it, and then bent to adjust one of the spell working tools by his feet.

"You don't want to stop me Detective," Haward said, almost conversationally. "I'm healing the human race. These three are diseases, you see. By getting rid of them, we can ensure that the human race will prosper." A match was struck, and Henry's senses were suddenly harassed by the scent of a strong incense. His eyes though, remained on Celluci. He knew that the Detective was the only one who could understand what the man was talking about and he had to rely on him to try and cover up what was going on.

"And what about Jane Deer?" Celluci asked, his tone careful. "Was she a disease on the human race too?" That was certainly a good question. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry caught Arianrhod shaking her head. By her expression, he could tell that she knew something no one else did and that she desperately wanted to shout it out. He couldn't figure out why she didn't - unless it was something that would put Ambrose on his guard. With Haward's defences still low, Henry could see why she wouldn't want to take that risk. He hoped that whatever she had to say wouldn't be crucial at the last moment.

"A necessary casualty of war. She will be missed," as he said it, he indicated a candle that had been lit on the alter by his feet. "That represents her. I remember those that give themselves up for humanity's future."

"It was murder, Ambrose," Celluci called. He was close to the circle now and had stopped walking. If he had just taken another step… "You killed her. A normal human, just like you and I." The tone was still so careful, but Henry wasn't sure that it was getting to Haward. In fact, he was pretty sure that it wasn't. He turned his head to glance at Vicki and nodded slowly at the expression on her face. Maybe, with a little bit of push…

His eyes darkened and he allowed his vampire to come forth. It would only take a second. A short second in which Celluci's partner would hopefully think that she had just seen something that was a trick of the light. He made a noise in his throat which attracted Ambrose's attention to him, just long enough that he was able to snare the man's attention.

_"Go with the police_," he urged. He pushed forth the command for a long moment, forcing fear upon the man as much as he was able when he was barely restraining his own fear of what would happen if he didn't succeed.

"No!" Katrijn shrieked suddenly, breaking off Henry's concentration before he had convinced Haward to carry out his order. "Leave him alone!" she spat.

"Quiet, Kati," Arianrhod ordered. "You don't know what you're doing."

But the young blonde wasn't having any of it. Instead, she was staring beseechingly at Ambrose, her dark eyes pleading with him to rethink what he was doing. "Ambrose, please," she whispered once she was sure that she had his attention.

The man shook his head. "Never. You were a fool to think that I could still love you after… After you succumbed to her!" He was pointing an accusing finger in Arianrhod's direction and the woman made a comment in a scoffing tone that Henry couldn't make out. However, though the words had been lost, the meaning was clear.

"Do you want to be first!?" Ambrose cried, turning on the red-haired woman. She gave a proud toss of her head and looked at him with a flat, irritated expression.

"Since you're not going to do anything," she said in crisp, clear tones, "I don't see why not." Her eyes weren't focused on Ambrose but were instead staring past him at the two homicide detectives and Vicki.

"You think _they_ can save you? They can't even enter this circle! They'll stand, and they'll watch, and they'll learn. They'll learn of your disease and they'll realise why humankind must extinguish all of your kind, and then they'll join me!" Henry wished that he could tune out the diatribe. It really wasn't interesting, and it wasn't as though he hadn't heard it from other self-styled "vampire hunters" in the past. He glanced over at Arianrhod to see that she appeared just as bored. Katrijn, on the other hand, looked absolutely terrified.

"We'll see about that, Ambrose." Vicki's voice. Henry forced himself to look away from that direction - he didn't want to know what she thought that she was invincible against now. If neither Detective Celluci nor Detective Lam had been able to enter the circle, he didn't know what Vicki thought she had that they didn't. Unless…

"Vicki, no," Henry called. He didn't need to look in her direction to know that she had rolled her eyes.

"While you seem willing to sacrifice yourself, Henry, I doubt Arianrhod and Katrijn have the sae death wish," she replied curtly and, he thought, just a bit teasingly. Though he was sure that he had imagined the last part in order to take the sting out of the comment. He wasn't self-sacrificing. He would be quite happy to make it out of this whole but that was no reason for Vicki to take advantage of her marks yet _again _without thinking of the consequences.

"On your head be it," he replied just as curtly. Hopefully the tone and the words would get to Celluci if they didn't impact Vicki, and he would hold her back. Then again, it was a big circle and as tall as Celluci was, he couldn't keep her from the whole perimeter. Victoria Nelson was a truly infuriating woman.

"Yeah, yeah," she replied, and then suddenly there was a burst of orange light and Henry could move again. Just like that, the spell had been broken. Something flickered past his unfocused line of vision, but he didn't need to see it to know that Arianrhod was exacting her revenge upon Haward, even despite the protests of her child.

There would be no more threat against vampires in his territory. At least, not for a long while. It was over, for now, and he could get Arianrhod and Katrijn to leave. It was finally over.

"Vicki!" Or, maybe not.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen Preview

_'If he's not gone in ten seconds, I think I might strangle him,' _she didn't know where the thought had come from, but it seemed like a good idea, so she allowed it to float around.

"So, are those other two leaving now?"

"Oh, changing the subject, are we?"

* * *

Home stretch! Only one or two more chapters left, guys! 


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Prosperity**

_Chapter Fifteen_

Henry spun snarling in the direction that Celluci's call had come from. _Vicki_. He'd taken his eyes from her for a mere moment. A _moment_. Just long enough to ensure that Haward wasn't running. Just long enough to relish in his ability to move again. Just long enough for something to happen to Vicki.

The vampire's eyes met the eyes of the detective and he found that Celluci looked confused. Torn, between helping Vicki and doing the job that he had been called in to do. Henry frowned and tilted his head toward where Haward had been stopped by Arianrhod. The scent of blood was beginning to permeate the air and if the detective wanted a body to arrest, he was going to have to act sooner instead of later.

Celluci nodded once and both men moved; Henry surging forward to where Vicki lay prone on the snow covered sports' arena, Celluci to Haward, shouting words and legal phrases that didn't register in Henry's brain as anything other than background noise.

"You're a fool, Victoria Nelson," Henry muttered softly as he lifted her from the ground. Her clothes were soaked, her skin not nearly as warm as it should have been. Annoyed as he was with her though, he still cradled her carefully in his arms, holding her close to his chest even though there was no hope of her gaining any sort of body heat from him. It was a shame that in matters of health it wasn't thought that counted. For that matter, he wasn't sure if something as simple as 'thought' was something that ever counted with Vicki.

Frowning, Henry turned and looked across Vicki's head and toward Celluci, who was conversing with as angry looking Arianrhod. The woman was being denied her right to dispose of Ambrose Haward and she didn't sound too pleased about it. In the other direction, Detective Lam was walking Ambrose across the field and toward where the cars with their continuously whirring lights and sirens were waiting. Henry watched her leave and then made his way across to where Celluci and Arianrhod were talking.

"She going to be okay?" Celluci asked as soon as Henry had stopped walking. He looked down at Vicki and felt a burst of irritation at the assumption that he would know what condition Vicki was in, even as he realised that he should be pleased, maybe even flattered, that Celluci had bothered asking him at all.

"As long as I get her out of the cold before she catches something, she'll be fine," Henry replied. Then, because he thought Michael - when he was thinking of the man as someone concerned about Vicki instead of as a romantic rival, he could use the man's first name. At least in his mind - deserved to know, he added, "It was the spell effect that caused her to collapse. Something about the type of magic that has been used throughout this investigation causes her marks to react, and the surge seems to be too much for her mind, body or both. Once she's away from the remnants of the power, she will wake up and be fine again."

"You hope," Mike said shortly on the tail of the explanation.

Henry frowned and shook his head. "No, Detective. I know," he responded, tone of voice one that had been carefully cultured when he had still been alive and was being raised as the proper son of a king, despite the situation that had surrounded his conception and birth. The tone made Celluci hesitate but finally the man simply nodded, leaving Henry free to turn is attention to Arianrhod.

"I have solved your problem. It is time for you and your child to leave," he said, allowing his human mask to slip as he said it.

The woman shuffled and Henry thought for a moment that she was going to attack him - his body tensed, waiting for her to make a move… And then, as abruptly as the feeling had shot through him, it was gone. Arianrhod was frowning at him, though she continued to move as though she had felt the same thing that he had. They had shared the same territory for too long. It had come to the point where one had to leave, or one had to die.

"We will depart at sunset," the red-haired woman replied. "It that doesn't bother you," she added, tone making it sound as though it had been an after thought, even though the words were added very quickly.

Henry frowned, his eyes finding Katrijn, and he shook his head. "It's fine," he said with a nod in her direction. Then, with another nod, this time to Detective Celluci, Henry took off toward his car. He needed to get Vicki someplace warm. It had to be his first priority. If the detective wanted a statement or something - and his expression as Henry had departed had suggested that he did - that could come later. As angry as he was with Vicki for taking advantage of her marks - _again ­_- it was still his responsibility to ensure that she survived tonight.

He still wasn't sure what he had been thinking when he had decided that it would be a good idea to pursue a relationship with Vicki Nelson.

---

Awareness made a slow creep back into her senses, starting with memory and coming forth slowly until she could blink her eyes open and stare around at the ceiling above her. The blurry, dim ceiling above her. Where were her glasses? For that matter, where was she? She was pretty sure that the ceiling above her bed didn't look a thing like that. Waking up in a strange place probably wasn't a good sign for what was to come.

Vicki groaned and threw her hand out to one side, feeling for a bedside table or _something_ that her glasses could be perched on. To her left, she only hit pillows and bed. To her right, more pillows and more bed. Lovely. She was right in the centre of a gigantic bed. She supposed that meant that she wasn't being held as some sort of prisoner, though it didn't do much to assuage her fear. She still couldn't see.

"Stop that," a voice chided as she reached out for her glasses again, this time rolling onto her side to give her the extra reach. She turned her head toward the voice and was able to make out the dim shape of a man standing near the end of the bed.

"Stop what? Trying to see? No thanks," Vicki replied. "Where are my glasses?" The man made an annoyed noise, but a moment later Vicki felt the familiar frames being pushed into her hand. She grinned crookedly up at Henry as she slipped them onto her nose and blinked a couple of times to focus her eyes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," the vampire replied as he seated himself on the edge of the bed. "And as much as I love having you right where you are―" Vicki blushed and reached forward to hit him. "―it's almost dawn, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave," he finished with a grin as he caught her wrist.

"Great. Not even going to tell me what happened or how the hell I ended up in your bed?" she asked, irritated. She remembered breaking the circle that Ambrose had constructed, the dart of pain that had shot through her wrists at the exact moment that the barrier had fallen and then blackness. She supposed that she had collapsed but she wasn't quite sure _why_.

"Maybe tonight." There was a definite cool tone to Henry's voice.

"Don't you think it's something I deserve to know?" she demanded. Henry frowned at her.

"There wouldn't be anything _to_ know if you had just listened to me instead of deciding to play hero," he retorted. "Maybe Detective Celluci will tell you. Now, if you'll excuse me, dawn is trembling on the horizon and I would like to be in bed when it comes so that I don't spend the day sprawled on the floor."

Vicki scowled at him but complied, slipping off of the bed and past him, ignoring the assisting hand that he extended toward her. She left without looking at him, barely stopping herself from letting out her frustration in a childish manner and stomping from the room. The shuffling sound of sheets moving reached her ears from the bed and her lips tightened in annoyance as she closed the door behind her.

A moment later, just as Vicki reached the front entrance to the condo, the door to Henry's bedroom opened again. "Vicki," he called softly. She hesitated and then turned her head back to look at him.

"Yes, Henry?" she asked, not bothering to keep the irritation out of her voice. She was annoyed with him, he could deal with it. There was no reason for her to try and hide it from him. Besides that, she knew that he was annoyed - or angry - with her as well, so why couldn't both of them snipe at each other? It always worked to calm the tension between her and Mike.

The vampire sighed and even without turning around - or turning on a light for that matter - she could see him rolling his eyes. "Come back tonight and we'll talk," he said. Something about the way that he said it told her that he was very carefully controlling not only his tone, but also the words that were coming out. She was tempted to ask him what it was that he really wanted to say but decided that she probably didn't want to know, and that even had she wanted to, her temper didn't need for her to know.

"Fine," she said, then, because she couldn't help but add it, "Good night." And she left. Behind her, she heard the door lock. "Great. A put-out vampire. Just what I need to deal with," she grumbled to herself, shaking her head a she made her way to the elevator.

---

"Vickiii. Vicki. Vicki! Hey! Come on, get up!"

Coreen was incredibly talented at making her voice an incessant whine. She had to practice. There was no other way she could be so good at it.

"Vicki!"

If Coreen would direct the whine at anyone other than her, it might be tolerable. As it was, she wished she had something close at hand that would shut the girl up. She didn't need to see where Coreen was standing. She didn't even need to open her eyes. She was pretty sure that she could figure out exactly where her assistant was standing, just by where the sound was coming from. Now, she just needed some sort of projectile that would have enough of an impact to make her shut up.

Still half asleep, she groped around the couch with one hand, fingers trailing around and trying to find something suitable. After a moment, she closed them around something squishy. Pillow. Perfect.

"Hey, Vic―" She sent the pillow from her hand toward the source of the voice, her mind not quite comprehending that it was no longer high and whiny. Or Coreen's voice at all, for that matter. The pillow came spinning back from out of the air and smacked her in the head, bouncing off after it had impacted and landing with a soft thump on the floor.

"Love you too, Mike," she growled, finally opening her eyes so that she could squint across the room and to where he was standing in the doorway. He snorted and made a gesture with his hand that she couldn't quite make out. She got the idea though, and set her hand to groping for something else to toss at him.

"Grab your glasses and wake up so that we can talk. I have coffee," Mike said. Now _there _was incentive. Coffee.

Then again… "Real coffee or Tim Hortons coffee?" she asked. Another pillow hit her. "What!? It's a legitimate question!" she exclaimed, grabbing her glasses and slipping them onto her nose.

"Real coffee," he replied, holding out the tray. Vicki grinned at him and grabbed the paper cup that was closest to her. She indulged in a few long sips of the steaming beverage while Mike seated himself on the couch next to her.

"What time is it?" she asked idly, looking toward the clock even as she asked the question. Her eyes found the time piece on the wall and she muttered, "Noon," at the same time as Celluci declared it with a little bit more excitement than she could find. Noon was an early hour when her last few nights had been spent chasing vampires.

"So, how do you feel?" The question was asked so offhandedly that Vicki couldn't even pretend not to notice how badly Mike wanted the answer.

"I'm fine, Mike. Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, taking another drink of coffee. She wondered where Coreen had gone. If her assistant was still around, maybe she'd be willing to save her from the awkward conversation that she was no doubt going to have to sit through now. She was sitting up, breathing, drinking coffee, what could be wrong with her?

He raised an eyebrow, an annoyed expression on his face. "Why wouldn't you be? Vicki, you passed out last night. In the middle of a snow covered football field," he stated. Well, she _had_done that. And as great as it was that he was worrying about her…

"Mike, I'm fine. See? Sitting up, drinking coffee…" she paused and rolled her sleeves up just enough to bare Astaroth's marks. "Not glowing."

"But they were last night, Vicki, and that's my point," he said, more than a little bit of aggression in his tone.

"It's fine. I don't need both you and Henry mad at me, thanks," she retorted coolly.

"How_is_ Fang Boy?" Celluci asked.

Vicki frowned at him. "No idea. I woke up this morning, he made some lewd comments and then he kicked me out."

"So, his normal moody self then," Mike responded. Vicki shrugged and nodded.

"That was pretty much what I was thinking. Apparently we're going to 'talk' tonight. Which means I don't need it from you right now," she said and took another drink of coffee. She hoped it would be enough for him, but she doubted it.

"Maybe we should talk now," Mike suggested.

"Or, you could leave," she said, smiling sweetly at him. "And let me get back to sleep."

"Vicki…"

_'If he's not gone in ten seconds, I think I might strangle him,' _she didn't know where the thought had come from, but it seemed like a good idea, so she allowed it to float around. She thought that her subconscious was probably on the right track anyway. Strangulation would get Mike off of her back for a little while at least.

"So, are those other two leaving now?"

"Oh, changing the subject, are we?" she snapped. He was going to come back to the _'Vicki we need to talk'_ vein soon. It was inevitable.

"I thought I might try it," he replied. It was his turn to smile sweetly at her. He did it in such a manner that she knew he already had the answer to his own question.

"You're supposed to be a better liar than that, Mike," she replied. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Was that a challenge?" he asked. Vicki rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"No. Can we talk later?" she asked through clenched teeth. Mike took in a long breath and finally threw up his arms.

"Fine. Tell Fitzroy that I need him to make a statement about last night. I already have one from both Arianrhod Geddes and Katrijn Dench. Then, I want you to remember that _we_ are going to be having a conversation about you thinking that you're invincible." He'd gotten up off of the couch and moved out of her reach as he said this, so she couldn't even hit him for the comment.

"I can take care of myself, Mike," she growled.

"Oh, careful Vicki. You're starting to adopt Fitzroy's animal noises." He grinned as he said it, and just managed to duck behind the doorframe before the pillow she threw at him went flying through the open space where he had been standing. A moment later, she heard the door close and she shook her head and flopped backward on the couch.

Men!

* * *

Only the epilogue to go! 


	17. Epilogue

**Prosperity**

_Epilogue_

Vicki frowned down at the paper shredder as she fed the pages information from the file she'd been keeping on Ambrose Haward's case to the machine. Everything had turned out so strangely but at least it was all over now. And somehow, she'd passed out twice through the duration of the case. Somehow, she didn't think she would be allowed to forget _that_ anytime soon. Even if Henry and Mike meant well now, what with the constant questions about her health. Soon though, it was going to pass, and she was sure that it would turn into mocking comments.

And neither Mike nor Henry wanted to deal with the repercussions of mocking her, she was sure.

There was a rustle of paper and Vicki turned from her focus on the paper shredder to look at Henry just as he walked into the main part of the office. He raised an eyebrow, even as he brought a hand up to shield his eyes against the brightness of the lights in the room.

"You look like you're in a better mood tonight," she commented, spying the grin that was on his face. The grin grew and Vicki frowned at him. "I feel like you're planning something and that it involves me. What are you planning?" she asked. The corners of Henry's mouth twitched as though they were going to frown.

"Why would I be planning something?" he asked. The grin didn't go away. In fact, it was beginning to look quite cheeky. Cheeky and Henry didn't go together in her mind, making her feel quite suspicious.

"For no reason that I can think of but that doesn't mean you aren't planning something," she replied, returning her gaze to the paper shredder as she fed another sheet through it.

"You're just being overly suspicious," Henry murmured. He'd come up behind her, moving so close that as he spoke his breath stirred the hair on the back of her neck. She shivered and moved forward, away from the sensation.

"Maybe. I suppose you're here so that we can 'talk?'" she asked, looking down at the papers that remained in Ambrose Haward's folder before she shrugged and just fed the rest of them to the paper shredder. No paper trail made things difficult for the police, but that wasn't exactly something that she was worried about. Getting rid of the papers would make it impossible to discover what Arianrhod and Katrijn were and that was all that Vicki was concerned with at the moment.

"Among other things," Henry replied, trailing the fingers of one hand through the tips of her hair. She made to move forward but Henry clicked his tongue chidingly. "Stop running away," he murmured. His lips were close to her neck, and it was all she could do not to pull away again.

"This your way of telling me you're hungry?" She asked, trying to keep a light tone in her voice. Henry laughed softly.

"Are you offering?" he asked. One hand was moving her hair but over her shoulder and away from her neck and his lips were suddenly floating just above the exposed skin.

"You're not giving me much chance to refuse," she said in a flat, sardonic tone that she hoped expressed the exact opposite of what she was actually feeling. He pulled back and spun her around so that she was forced to stare up at him.

"Don't imply that I would force you when you know that I would never do anything of the sort," he snarled. She could tell that he was barely holding onto his humanity and she frowned, raising her hands and placing them flat on his chest.

"I know that, Henry, and I wasn't," she replied in a manner that she_hoped_ was soothing enough to calm the anger that had spiked. He shifted and she watched expressions chase each other around his face, as though he couldn't quite decide what emotion he wanted to present to her, or he wasn't sure what it was that he was feeling at all.

Finally, his countenance settled into a rather flat expression. "We should talk about what happened last night," he said, not sounding like he wanted to talk about it at all.

'_You're such a mood killer, Nelson,_' Vicki thought to herself dryly. It was no wonder that nothing ever happened between her and Henry. She always ended up forcing him to give up when he'd barely begun trying anything.

"Right. Arianrhod and Katrijn ended up getting out of there alright? Mike said he'd gotten statements from them and oh, he wants one from you too," she said quickly. Henry nodded, then looked past her and gestured toward the couch.

"Let's sit," he murmured. There was something in his tone that she couldn't make out and she gave him a questioning look that he ignored in favour of sitting down and moving the pillows away from one end of the couch so that she could join him.

"You don't want to be here talking about this, do you?" Vicki asked as innocently as she could considering it was the last thing that_ she_ wanted to be sitting here and doing. Henry frowned at her, though he hesitated before answering.

"We need to talk about you taking advantage of your marks like that," he said stiffly.

"You know that I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to," Vicki retorted as calmly as she could. She was determined not to start screaming at him, because she knew that it wouldn't do her any good at all to do so.

Hand's hand was playing through the ends of her hair again. "You say that now, but you can't know it for sure," he argued. She looked at him, both eyebrows raised so that her whole forehead was scrunched up in disbelief.

"Well if that's the confidence that you have in my self control, then you can get up and leave," she snapped. Damn vampire. She couldn't believe that he had the nerve to suggest she would take advantage of the marks Astaroth had left on her without dire reason.

"Vicki…" Henry began, then shook his head and appeared to be trying to get his bearings before he started over. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Really. What is, then?" she barked in return, a challenging glint in her eye. Henry frowned at her, then tossed his arms up in the air in an open, conceding gesture.

"Maybe it was, a bit, but it wasn't what I meant to imply," he replied. Vicki thought that under the layers of annoyance he sounded a bit frustrated - and with himself, not her - and it was that more than anything that brought her gaze back around to him.

"Whatever you're trying to tell me, just come out and say it," she said, feeling a stupid grin that she couldn't control spread slowly across her face. Even as she fought to wipe it from her features, her mind was screaming at her for showing Henry just how much she actually appreciated his worry for her.

"I'm trying to look out for you, because it's my fault that you're stuck in this world in the first place," he muttered, voice quiet. Vicki didn't think it was from embarrassment; Henry knew her well enough to predict her initial, explosive reaction to the comment.

"That's nice, but I don't need your protection," she barked before her brain had even registered that she was going to speak the words. Then she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "It's not a one-way street, Henry. There's no way you would have gotten away from Haward without help, so I helped you because…" she faltered and shook her head again with a grimace, hoping that he understood what it was that she was trying to say because she couldn't get the rest of the words out.

Henry was grinned at her again, all signs of the serious conversation they'd been having wiped from his ace. He leaned forward and almost impulsively, she found herself leaning backward and away from him. Not that the arm of the couch gave her much room to move away.

Henry crinkled his brow. "Stop moving," he muttered, leaning closer. She fought the urge to fidget. She _wasn't_ going to make this awkward. In fact…

"You know, Henry, if you want to kiss me, you could just do it," she said, one hand coming up to cup the back of his neck and pull him forward. He clearly hadn't been expecting it because he overbalanced and fell forward on top of her.

"I've been trying to find the opportunity since this case started." It sounded like a confession and she _knew_ that she didn't want to hear it. She really didn't need to hear his reasons behind trying to kiss her when they'd just been arguing. Mike had done it all the time too.

"Save the mushy stuff," she muttered, closing the distance between them and pressing her lips to his.

_End_

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Hope you enjoyed, thanks for staying with me and please review!

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Next Volume Preview; 

**Something Wicked** - Cast and crew of a production of 'Macbeth' are dying for no seeable reason. When the producer comes to Vicki for help, the last thing she expects to discover is that the old superstition of speaking the name in a theatre might have basis in fact.


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